Chapter 221: The Decisive Engagement

James kept the spyglass on the southern water longer than he intended, waiting for the smoke to give him an answer. This time it refused.

Where there had been smoke and gunfire a short while before, there was now only slack canvas and hulls riding low and quiet. Nothing moving between those ships looked much like a fight anymore.

From this distance, he could make out little beyond the broad shadows of the ships. But one thing was clear enough, the fight was soon to be over, and it would end in their favor.

James lowered the glass. He let himself look at the whole battle instead of one piece after another.

North was still theirs. Two sloops were broken outright, while two more fought on with more faith than an actual plan for victory.

South was nearly finished.

That left the center, and the center was where the genuine trouble had always been. Three ships against four, and one of those four brought seventy guns spread across two full decks.

"James!"

Anne’s voice came from the mortar crew. "Elevation says we’re in range of the galleons, and the fat bitch behind them besides, if you’ve a mind to give an order before Christmas!"

James nodded, well aware of the Spanish Armada strategy by then. The sloops were to keep the flanks too busy to lend a hand until the heavier ships could come up and deal with the great door in the middle of the bay.

Break that, and four tired crews scattered over open water would be easy pickings whenever the Spaniards came collecting.

It was a reasonable plan, made by a commodore who thought he knew what stood against him. James was glad of it, as the Rose was much more than an enemy captain might imagine even in his wildest dreams.

The Spaniard meant him to bleed six miles from El Morro or La Punta’s effective range, and that made it his water, whatever hour he had chosen.

Cudjoe was at his shoulder, as if he had been reading the same stretch of sea.

"Reserve’s over," James nodded. "Time to join the fun."

Cudjoe grunted. "About bluidy time. Was startin’ tae think ye meant tae let the Fortune an’ those wee cute sloops have all the sport tae themselves."

"The captain has to pace himself, Cudjoe."

"Aye, must be a grand feelin’, standin’ about countin’ yer sums while that Spanish bastard comes on us with a murderous boner."

James laughed and gave the order.

The Rose came about, her canvas filling as she cut across the last of the open water toward the largest ship in the Armada.

Below, through an open hatch, Sawyer’s voice floated upward, flat and easy, meant for the timber beneath his hands rather than anybody listening nearby. "Aye, lass, I know she’s bigger than the last one ye had a mind tae argue with, but ye’ve stood worse than a few extra holes, an’ I’ll thank ye tae remember that before ye start frettin’ on my account."

By the mainmast, Rook and Twice had found themselves a fresh wager. Neither man was foolish enough to bet against the Rose making it through whole, so they were betting on how many broadsides she’d take before Cudjoe stopped pretending he was as calm as a ice rock.

"Three."

Rook snorted, spitting into his palm to seal it.

"Old man’s face puckers tighter than a nun’s arsehole after three. Every time."

"Two. Faster than a whore’s arsehole takin’ a fist, with some ship this size bearin’ down on us."

They shook on it, neither bothering to ask Cudjoe what he thought.

The mortars answered as the range closed. Powder, elevation, and Anne’s counting was enough this time, with no perk bothering to lend a hand.

The shell climbed high, hung for a moment against the grey sky, then dropped across San Felipe’s upper deck and ripped away a length of rail and rigging in a storm of splinters.

A knot of men went off their feet together as the shell tore through the upper deck. Blood spattered the planks beneath them, and the cries of the wounded carried briefly over the crash of timber.

For all that, the damage was little more than a bloody scratch upon a ship built to take far worse.

Against a sloop, that would have finished her. Against a proper motherfucking ship of the line, it did little more than mark her. It was a wound she could carry all day without letting it slow her down.

James watched the hit land and let out the driest laugh he could manage. "Christ, lads, we didn’t need luck for that one. Hittin’ some ship the size of a small township only requires the good manners not to miss on purpose."

Whatever hurt the mortars had caused, and whatever more the Rose and the Queen Anne continued to rain down upon them, San Felipe cast aside the last of her caution.

Canvas piled on across all four Spanish ships. The slow crawl that had brought them halfway across the bay became a charge, bow waves breaking white against their timbers as officers aboard drove their crews for every last knot the wind could give.

The three galleons spread wide around her as they came on, no longer willing to let their smaller ships do all the bleeding.

As the two battle lines closed for good, the ships began to separate into their fights.

The Grand Dame swung her bulk toward the lead galleon, the Guadalupe, riding low and eager for an opponent nearer her own size.

The Rose slipped past both and kept straight for San Felipe el Real, the one ship in the whole fleet built to answer a broadside and walk away laughing about it.

That left the Queen Anne’s Revenge to face the Carmen and Rosario together, carrying more iron in her belly than either sister combined.

Every ship on both sides came on together, matches lit and glowing low in the wind, three separate fights waiting at the very edge of ending.

Not one gun had fired yet along the whole line, and for that long stretch of waiting, not a man aboard the Rose drew an easy breath.