Chapter 217: No Quarter on the Northern Flank

James kept his glass on San Felipe el Real. The lass had barely moved an inch of water since her flags went up, and so long as she held her ground, the Rose would hold hers.

The Rose was the only ship in the fleet built to trade iron with a ship of the line, and there was no good reason to spend her against sloops that other ships seemed quite capable of handling.

The mortars tempted him more, as [True Shot] had found her mark twice, clean enough to make a captain think she couldn’t miss. That was just the sort of thought that got some poor fellow wearing his own colors killed by a shell meant for a Spaniard.

The sloops weren’t alone in open water anymore. They closed on ships James had sent out under his flag, and he wasn’t fool enough to trust a friend’s life to luck for a third shot when there was no need.

He lifted the glass instead and turned it north, toward Howard and Vane, and there the fight finally became his business.

Four of the nine sloops still standing had broken away from the fan and were driving hard for the northern flank. The wind came steady out of the east, as it always did at this time of year, giving an advantage to whichever ship reached the flank first.

The Ranger and the old Revenge held their water as the four came on. Two drove fast and reckless for the weather gage, while the other pair made a wider, more patient turn down to leeward.

They were content to let their mates draw the first blood before coming into the fight from a fresh direction.

Vane stood at his wheel with that loose, dangerous ease he had. The wind worked through unkempt hair and a beard too wild to be called tidy by any reasonable man.

His shirt hung open at the collar, his coat snapped behind him, and he watched four sloops bear down on his ship without showing a flicker of anything sensible people might call worry.

Rackham stood beside him, calico sleeves rolled past the elbow. It was a good deal finer a cloth than the work required, and he seemed not to care.

"Two comin’ hard for the gage."

He nodded toward the nearer pair, his voice carrying steady beneath the wind. "Other two are holdin’ wide, waitin’ for us to bleed first before they join in proper. Guns are run out, Captain, yer word on which o’ the bastards we’re takin’ first."

"Neither one’s gettin’ an inch off me."

Vane’s grin showed every tooth God had left him. "Four sloops reckon they’ve got the numbers on two actual battle hardened crews. Christ, I nearly feel sorry for the poor cunts."

Howard made no speech at all. He simply worked the Revenge across the second lead sloop’s path, leaving her no clean way past either pirate hull once the guns started to fire.

The two lead sloops came on fast, canvas straining against the wind, while the trailing pair kept their wider line, patient as men waiting their turn at a card table. Aboard the nearer Spanish deck, an officer’s voice washed thinly across the water as he called his crew to their stations.

"¡A sus puestos! ¡Carguen los cañones!"¹

Aboard the Ranger, the crew’s talk had rather more flavor.

"Look at him shakin’ like a wet dog."

Some gunner elbowed the sailor beside him hard enough to nearly knock him onto the planks.

"Might piss himself before the first shot’s fired."

"Better that than shittin’ meself after, same as you did off the Bahamas."

"Aye, and I’ll gladly do it again, so long as there’s Spaniard blood mixed in with me own this time."

The Ranger came about hard, meeting the boldest of the two lead sloops nearly bow to bow rather than give her a single yard of open water.

The Revenge held her course a moment longer against the second, patient and unhurried. Every gun that could bear ran out together, matches already lit and glowing low against the wind.

The range closed to almost nothing between one breath and the next.

The Ranger’s broadside tore the lead sloop open along her whole flank at that range. The first shot smashed through her side in a line of splintering timber and iron, punching through planks, gun carriages, and sailors alike. Her forward guns vanished behind a cloud of smoke and flying wreckage.

The crew was thrown across the deck, or simply disappeared behind the torn rail as blood ran down through the shattered planks and guns jumped loose from their tackles. Cries rose from inside the smoke, some cut short almost as soon as they began.

Sailors either died before they understood the fight had properly begun, or went screaming into wreckage that had been the working heart of the ship only a moment before.

Then blood dripped across her boards and thick in the scuppers, while the screams behind her shattered rail carried clear across the water to the Revenge as she came in.

Her rigging sagged where the shot had cut through it, loose rope whipping in the wind, while one section of canvas flapped uselessly above the deck. Yet the battered sloop still had enough way beneath her to stagger onward.

She wasn’t finished yet. Her guns answered before she went fully silent, and the shot tore a length of rail from the Ranger’s side.

The Ranger’s guns lurched backward against its tackle, and splinters scattered across the deck. Those flew hard enough to put sailors down bleeding on her deck.

Vane laughed outright at the hit. He was delighted by it rather than troubled, and slapped one hand against the wheel as though the whole exchange had been put on for his amusement.

Farther off, Howard’s fight was going more evenly. The Revenge and her opposing sloop exchanged fire at a longer range, tearing into both ships as splinters and blood flew.

The shots struck the Revenge high along the side, blowing a ragged hole above the waterline and sending a shower of splinters across the deck. Her crew ducked and then went straight back to the guns, while smoke rolled low between the two hulls.

Neither ship gave an inch. It was a brutal, grinding fight rather than a slaughter, and both ships were still standing when the smoke began to clear between them.

The opposing sloop had lost part of her rail and showed fresh scars along her flank, while the Revenge had torn timber and blood across her deck. Neither had taken enough damage to leave the fight.

Vane looked over what remained of the lead sloop, her rail torn away and her deck a ruin of dead and dying men. He grinned, pleased with the work.

"That’s one less Spaniard’s problem to worry over."

He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

"Christ, I do love an easy mornin’."

"Wasn’t easy for them lyin’ on their own deck."

Rackham’s focus stayed on the battle. "Two more comin’ round from leeward, Captain. Reckon this mornin’s about to get considerably less easy for the rest of us."

Every ship on the flank turned through drifting smoke and thrown spray, finding its way back into the fight. The crippled Spanish sloop labored on through the smoke, her wounded sail hanging loose and her deck crowded with sailors trying to clear wreckage from the guns.

The Ranger and Revenge worked to regain whatever water they could before the last two sloops finally closed in from their wider circle. Both pirate ships had fresh splinter marks and blood on their decks now, but their guns were still run out and ready.

Whatever came next hadn’t properly begun.