Chapter 218: Rake and Ruin

By then, the two reserve sloops finished what they had begun from leeward, and neither showed much interest in being cautious about the maneuver.

One came in behind the mauled sloop still fighting the Ranger, closing the distance until Vane’s gun crews found themselves taking fire from two directions at once.

The other slipped in off the Revenge’s larboard bow beside the Spaniard she was already fighting, neat as a dance nobody aboard the pirate ships had agreed to attend.

Four hulls against two now, and all of them close enough to hurt.

Aboard the Ranger, a sailor claimed the exposed gun for himself before anybody thought to tell him to.

"I’ll take her!"

He climbed over a coil of rope to get there. "First pick o’ boots off any Spaniard that strikes, or so Rackham promised whoever mans that piece!"

Some mate called back, without taking his eyes from his own gun. "Boots off a corpse missin’ both feet don’t fit nobody, ye’ll be sortin’ through toes for yer trouble."

"Then I’ll wear the toes and call it fashion!"

The Spanish sloops fired together, and the Ranger answered a heartbeat later, except now the broadside came from both sides of her deck at once.

One cannonball cut clean through the foretop backstay and sent a length of rigging snapping loose across the waist. Then one more struck low in the hull and threw splinters across the third gun crew, dropping one sailor where he stood, his hand still wrapped around the rammer he had been driving home.

"Get him clear!"

His mate seized the body by the collar and dragged him aside, and the rammer went straight into the next pair of hands without a word wasted on dead man.

Rackham kept his attention on the mauled sloop and left the fresh one crowding them from the other side to wait.

"Her forward battery’s still choked, Captain."

He clicked his tongue without fear.

"Half the gun deck’s still haulin’ timber instead o’ loadin’ shot."

Vane’s grin came back sharp enough to suit the wind.

"Then we’ll not give the piss-stained bastards time to finish clearing it."

He hauled the wheel over himself, bringing the Ranger around without hesitation, trusting Rackham’s eye and nothing else.

The distance vanished between one breath and the next, and the Ranger’s whole starboard battery fired together into a hull that could only half answer.

The broadside ripped open her already-broken side a second time, the first impacts having left her planking ragged and splintered, now blown inward in a shower of timber. Guns, tackles, and loose wreckage went tumbling across the deck as Spaniards were thrown down among them.

Then one section of her side buckled inward with a crack that could be heard even through the guns, and the sailors disappeared beneath falling lengths of timber, or staggered away with blood running down their faces.

The Spaniards caught among the timber went down with it, cut through cleanly, buried beneath the spars they had been hauling a heartbeat before.

A few kept screaming after they fell, longer than any man had a right to, until smoke and fire between them finished the business.

Those that survived stumbled over the wreckage trying to reach the guns that were no longer there, or either called for water, for a surgeon, and beneath the broken deck voices kept crying out until the noise was swallowed by the next crash.

Fresh blood spread over blood from the first broadside, working into the seams of the deck and mixing with the splinters underfoot, and what was left of her forward battery never fired again.

The fire caught dry canvas below, and thick black smoke began climbing through her hatchways.

Then the sloop lurched away under the punishment, her forward works hanging in tatters and one section of her rigging trailing loose across the deck. Her bow no longer came cleanly around with the helm, and she wallowed for several seconds before the surviving crew managed to bring her back under some sort of control.

Her colors stayed flying.

Not a soul left alive on that deck seemed able to do anything about them.

That left the fresher of the two sloops facing the Ranger alone.

She fought hard enough, her guns catching the Ranger’s rail and tearing another length of it into the sea.

Splinters flew across the deck, and pirates threw themselves flat as the rail came apart beside them. The Spaniard’s next shot went high, its smoke hanging over her deck as she struggled to keep her guns bearing.

But a ship standing alone against a crew that had just broken one opponent was already losing, no matter what her gun captains thought, and every exchange left her worse than the one before.

Two cables off, the Revenge was doing much the same work from the other direction.

Her first opponent had held steady since the opening broadside, enough to answer shot for shot, while the second sloop crowded in from her stern quarter, making the advantage in numbers plain.

Howard’s crew worked their guns without wasting a word, grim and silent where the Ranger’s sailors were still finding ways to laugh between shots.

A cannonball came through low and took pirates off the pumps together, and neither the crew nor Howard gave them more attention than it took to drag them below.

The fresh sloop came too close in her hurry to bring her guns into the fight, crossing the Revenge’s stern instead of keeping her distance.

For one careless moment, she gave Howard the full length of her unprotected deck.

"Cross her wake."

It was the only order he gave, and it was enough.

The Revenge answered the wheel and swept across the Spaniard’s stern before the enemy gun crews had turned their pieces to follow.

The broadside that came a moment later ran the full length of her lower deck, cutting down the second and third gun crews in one stroke, timber, iron, and Spaniards torn through together.

The stern vanished behind a wall of smoke and splintered wood. Sailors were thrown across the deck as the shot tore through gun carriages and bodies alike, and the guns themselves were knocked sideways on their tackles. The blood spattered the planks around the shattered crews, running between the boards as the Revenge came clear.

A cry rose from her deck, "Nos van a..." and stopped there.

After that there was only the crash of falling spars and the low, broken noise of a sinking ship.

Her colors still hung from a halyard not a soul remained to tend, smoke rolling from what was left of her gun deck.

She staggered onward for a few moments with her sails drawing unevenly, then yawed across the swell as Spaniards who were still standing tried to get her back before the wind. A broken spar dragged over the side, knocking against the hull with each roll, while smoke poured steadily from below.

That left the Revenge’s first opponent alone against her, just as the Ranger’s opponent fought on alone across the water.

Neither had enough ships left around her to make the fight look even.

Two of the four sloops that had come around from leeward were finished, one burning and one silent.

The burning one drifted downwind with flames licking through her forward canvas, her rigging sagging where the heat had eaten through it. The other lay low in the water, smoke trailing from her gun ports and her deck strangely quiet.

The other two kept firing because neither crew had struck its surrender.

Pride will carry a man a good deal farther than sense usually permits.

Any officer watching from the safety of El Morro’s walls, spyglass to his eye and nothing better to do than count ships, would already have known who was winning this patch of water.

The guns hadn’t figured it out yet.