The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,20

And yet, no amount of resolve could prevent his flesh from twitching at every stab. The needle slipped often from her blood-slicked fingers.

She worked under the added pressure of being observed not only by the rope-swinging watchdog, but two others, loosely disguised as assistants. One, small and squat, with huge bulging eyes and an inordinately wide mouth — Frog, as she privately christened him — stood poised with a knife—being disinclined to trust her with it—to cut the thread as she knotted off each stitch. The second, tall and thin to the point of near frailty, with a neck and limbs befitting a great bird, Crane ripped bandages in between sprinkling sand under her feet whenever the floor grew too slippery with blood. She resented their lack of trust, flattering herself as one who possessed enough honor not to exact revenge on a wounded man.

With a sigh of relief, she tied off the last stitch. She moved on to the next one injured, and then the next, all the while working under the severe mask of Watchdog and every man she treated. Those who conceded to being treated by her were, for the most part, as stoic as Chin. Unflinching as she sewed their flesh or set their bones, they didn’t scruple, however to smirk at her terrified state.

The bastards!

Cate glanced at the faces of each one and tried to match them with those she had seen during the fight on the Constancy. It was impossible that she could have been directly responsible for every injury, but clearly they thought as much. She focused on her task, allowing her bent head to take the brunt of their malice. Now bloody to the wrists, she could smell her own sweat above the press of bodies around her. Her jaw ached from being set. Determination turned inward, some might have called it “fortitude,” but her father, brothers, and husband had called it “stubbornness.”

Be damned if I’m going to be cowed by a bunch of pirates!

At least that was what she told herself, until her pace slowed. Mastiff swung his club-rope with a resounding whack, spurring her to work with renewed fervor. Under more ordinary circumstances, she could have worked with confidence; she had staunched a war’s worth of wounds. This wasn’t the maiming and dismemberment as wrought by cannon fire. Hand-to-hand battle produced more in the way of slashes, fractures, and dislocations, dismemberment being limited to knuckles, noses, or ears. The blood, however, ran just as red, the agony just as real.

The hatch grates were drawn back and ’tween decks was flooded with daylight. With it a came a downdraft of fresh air; she inhaled deeply several times through her nose to clear away the fug of blood, vomit, and unwashed male. The lowering to the hold of plunder from the Constancy began, bulging net after net. The process involved a great deal of cursing and shouting, often requiring her to shout into the ear of her patient. Those injured in the loading process took their place in the makeshift sick bay’s line: a gaffing hook to the foot, a smashed hand, and one who had taken an inopportune step and tumbled through the Constancy’s hatch.

And then, she was done. Wincing, Cate slowly straightened and waited. No one stepped forward; no one beckoned. Flushed with exertion, she washed the blood and filth from her hands in a bucket and dried them on her hem. Little could be done for the shift she wore, now smeared red from chest to knees. All told, there had been well over a score to be seen, all now either resting comfortably in their hammocks or back on duty. She wasn’t ashamed to admit there was a small part of her that had enjoyed the work. For once, she had felt useful, a sense she had thought to be long dead.

Mastiff, Frog, and Crane having disappeared, she stood half expecting someone to either drag her away to be confined somewhere, or returned to Blackthorne’s cabin. Many of the men circled around her as if she carried wharf fever, while others intentionally brushed against her as they passed, murmuring lewd remarks. She retreated to as out-of-the-way corner as could be found in such tightly-packed quarters: atop a sea chest wedged between the aftmost guns—yes, she needed to remember that at sea cannon were called “guns”—and waited.

There was a bone-rattling bellow of “Swabbers!” She picked up her feet, crusted with the same slurry of sand and blood that fouled