Skull and Bones
John Drake
For my dear sister LGFF
Table of Contents
Three bells of the first dog watch
20th July 1735 (Old Style)
Aboard Isabelle Bligh
The Atlantic
The six-pound shot came aboard with a scream and a hiss, smashing one of the mainmast deadeyes, punching holes through the longboat secured over the waist, taking off the arm and shoulder of a seaman, as neat as a surgeon’s knife…and throwing the limb shivering at his feet, as if still alive. The man screamed, and sat down flat with his back to the windward bulwark.
In the horror of the moment, Olivia Rose, sixteen years old and at sea for the first time in her life, turned from her father and clung to the heavy bulk of the lad who’d been doing his best to stand between her and the flying shot.
“Get below!” cried Josiah Burstein, her father. “And get away from him!” He snatched her away, blinking nervously at the boy, for Burstein was a small man while the boy, also only sixteen, was broad and heavy with thick limbs, big fists and a dark, ugly face. But the boy stood back, nodding.
“Get