Free Web NovelChapter 34: Battle Against Guarda Costa
The space between the sloops seemed to linger a moment longer than it should have.
Then James put the Rose straight through the middle of it, and the world on either side of her became Spanish.
"Steady as she goes."
Cudjoe stood beside him, his eyes moving from one sloop to the other and back again, as if he was watching two dogs when he wasn’t certain whether they meant to fight each other or him.
From the outside, it had to look like madness. A brigantine steering herself into a narrow gap with enemy guns on both sides, close enough now that James could pick out faces along the rails. Any sensible captain would have called it suicide, and probably thought he was being generous.
But the Rose had advantages.
She was heavier than either sloop and built to endure punishment. From here she could put nine guns into each of them. They, meanwhile, had to worry about firing through their own companion if they wanted to do her serious damage.
James kept the wheel moving in small adjustments, never allowing her to sit perfectly centered. Whenever one sloop found a shot straight down the Rose’s length, the other ended up directly behind her.
It reminded him of two archers aiming at the same target, each more afraid of striking the other than eager to hit him.
"Fire as she bears!"
Farrow’s voice cracked across the gun deck, sharp enough to cut through the bells still ringing from both Spanish ships.
The starboard battery fired almost as one.
The blast hit James in the back teeth before his ears fully caught up with the sound. Smoke rolled backward through the open ports in thick gray sheets. Through a break in it, he saw the forward sloop’s rail explode into splinters and blood.
One of her guns tore free from its carriage and crashed sideways into the men behind it. A Spaniard disappeared beneath its wheels, screaming. Another stood frozen for a heartbeat, hands still reaching toward a rope that no longer existed, before someone shoved him toward the pumps.
Something stirred in James’s chest at the sight.
He looked away before he could think too much about it.
Then the port sloop answered.
Something slammed into the Rose high above the waterline. The impact felt like a church bell had kicked the hull. The shock traveled through the wheel and into James’s arms before the noise finished arriving.
Wood burst apart near the rail. Splinters as thick as a man’s thumb sprayed across the deck.
Somewhere amidships, a voice rose in furious outrage. "Bastards! Bitch ass bastards got Tomlin, the godless whoresons! I’ll feed every last cur of them to the fish myself!"
Tomlin himself was cursing loudly enough that he clearly wasn’t dying. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
James took that as encouraging.
"She’s fine below the waterline."
Cudjoe peered over the rail, then grinned. "Shot all that timber tae hell and still couldn’t find the water. Spanish gunnery’s growin’ disappointin’."
Hobbs arrived at a half run with his medical bag already open. He swore at Tomlin as though the injury had been arranged solely to inconvenience him. One hand packed the wound while the other took a pull from a flask.
Farrow was already moving along the cannons.
Rammers disappeared into smoking barrels. Powder followed. Shot came next. The guns were hauled back into position by crews who knew the rhythm so well they barely needed to think about it.
He stopped beside the one troublesome cannon he had complained about for two straight days.
"You had best not embarrass me in front of company."
The second broadside roared out.
Through the drifting smoke, James saw the forward sloop’s foresail tear open as though a blade had cut it from the inside. Canvas split apart and collapsed across her bow in a great sagging sheet.
At the same moment, a sailor high in the rigging lost his footing. He dropped, caught a line at the last possible second, and hung there howling while the ship beneath him yawed sideways and lost half her speed almost instantly.
The vessel wallowed.
James watched it happen and felt a hard, grim satisfaction tighten inside him.
Like a knot finally holding under strain.
The port sloop fired back.
One shot caught the line controlling the Rose’s forecourse. The rope snapped with a crack like a whip. The great sail above the bow swung loose and useless.
Briggs already had two men moving before James fully grasped what had happened, which was exactly why a ship needed a Briggs.
Near the bow, Kit had somehow acquired a pistol. He leaned out past the rail, both hands braced, squinting at a man wearing a coat far finer than anyone else aboard the port sloop. The fellow stood on her quarterdeck.
"That’ll be the captain!"
Kit bellowed, sounding delighted. "First man to shoot a Spanish captain dead off a movin’ deck, that’s history, that is!"
He fired.
The shot vanished into smoke, sea, or some combination of the two.
The Spanish captain did not even flinch.
"Reload and try again, lad."
James was grinning before he realized it.
"History isn’t goin’ anywhere."
"Port battery, fire as she bears!"
This time it was the port sloop’s turn to learn what the Rose could do.
The broadside struck low along the sloop deck. James watched the wheel housing burst apart in a shower of wood and brass fittings. The helmsman was thrown clear and did not immediately rise.
Smoke curled upward near the stern where something had caught fire. For a few moments the entire crew seemed caught between two disasters, half running toward the flames and half toward whatever remained of their helm.
A sloop without a steady hand on the wheel could not decide where she went next.
James understood exactly how valuable that was.
The Spaniards managed one more answer before they recovered.
Together the two sloops found enough order to throw a ragged volley into the Rose’s flank. More splinters flew. Two men near the mainmast went down clutching wounded arms and shoulders.
Both cursed loudly in different languages.
Neither appeared likely to die.
Hobbs now had enough work to occupy the rest of his evening.
James held the wheel through it all.
The deck shuddered beneath his boots.
He let the Rose answer once more.
The fourth broadside struck the forward sloop where her damaged foresail had already left her vulnerable. Through the gray haze, he saw her last active starboard gun fall silent halfway through loading.
The crew abandoned the piece entirely, choosing instead to drag wounded men away from a deck that had stopped being a battlefield and become a matter of survival.
The ship drifted back by half a length.
She was no longer keeping station. No longer truly part of the fight.
"They’re holdin’."
Cudjoe’s grin flashed white through the smoke.
"Look at the poor bastards. Both o’ ’em starin’ at us, neither knowin’ whether tae shoot or run."
His eyes followed the two sloops.
"Exactly where ye wanted them."
The anvil was doing its job.
James let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Not all of it. Just the particular breath that came from confirming the part of the plan that required him to remain alive was still working.
Then he turned toward starboard.
He searched through smoke and failing daylight, looking for any sign at all of the Revenge.
