Chapter 241: Skirmish with the Royal Navy

Cudjoe’s voice cracked across the whole deck.

"ALL HANDS TO BATTLE! Any lubber still standin’ idle, MOVE YER BLOODY ARSE!"

James dropped the spyglass and began to roar together, and between the two of them there was not a soul aboard who could mistake the moment for anything but a real fight.

"RUN ’EM OUT, YE LEECH-BELLIED BILGE RATS!"

"Get those guns crawlin’ outboard afore I come shove ’em out myself!"

"STRIKE THEM AWNINGS! Pull the bloody canvas down afore it fouls a gun!"

An awning rope came down across some poor lad’s skull hard enough to make his teeth crack, and the whole deck simply swallowed the incident and continued on. Amidst the uproar, a voice went up demanding a rammer, and half a dozen others cheerfully informed the unfortunate bastard that he could go hunting for it himself.

Cudjoe stood in the middle of the chaos like he had waited all morning for the world to give him work to do.

The black flag went up, the skull and crimson rose snapping open for any lookout aboard those three strangers sharp enough to understand the Devil’s door they just knocked.

James rushed for the quarterdeck, and Grey stepped away from the wheel without hesitation. So occupied for once that he had no complaint ready about buoyancy, impossible ships, or any of the other subjects on which he normally had a great deal to say.

"She’s yours, Captain."

"Aye, its time for the lass weekly exercise."

That was all there was to the exchange.

Grey disappeared toward whatever station, and James put both hands around the spokes of the wheel. He trusted it more than his own feet when the ship was about to become unreasonable.

Kit’s voice came down again, sharper now that the ships were coming. "Two sloops runnin’ ahead of her, Cap’n, and a frigate holdin’ back behind the both of ’em! Guns run out on all three, and they’ve turned onto us! This ain’t no customs skiff countin’ fishin’ boats, but the King’s navy come callin’!"

"Numbers, lad!"

"More guns than I’ve got fingers and toes to count ’em with, and I’m not stoppin’ to borrow anybody else’s!"

James saw what was coming, and the old heat began climbing into his chest.

Now trouble had finally answered.

It had come wearing His Majesty’s coat and was sailing straight at him with every intention of making good on them.

He couldn’t have wiped the grin off his face even if he wanted to.

Well. You did ask for a present with teeth.

"Aye, and here I thought you’d gone deaf."

I listen to everything. Most of it bores me considerably less than what is presently sailing toward you.

"Why, yes, you almost sound downright pleased by it."

Coming from the one man aboard this ship who spent the better part of a winter complaining about exactly that, I’d call it an astute observation.

James laughed outright, loud enough to make the sailors nearby grin without knowing why.

⚔ [BATTLE OVERVIEW]

ALLIED — CALLOWAY’S FLEET

Bloody Rose — Combat Ready, Maneuvering

ENEMY — ROYAL NAVY SQUADRON

HMS Swift — Combat Ready, Maneuvering

HMS Shark — Combat Ready, Maneuvering

HMS Winchelsea — Combat Ready, Holding Position

James read it once, whistled softly through his teeth, and put the wheel over.

The claret sails filled with gusto and the lass lurched forward. Through the glass, he saw the two sloops peel wide from either bow, then curl back toward one another, while the frigate remained well behind them, patient and steady.

Her gunports spread thick along both sides, and she seemed content to let her smaller sisters do the running and, if necessary, the dying.

Three ships were trying to close around him. James turned the Rose a little sooner than either sloop expected, creating a patch of water where the two of them had meant to shut him in.

"Anne! Farrow! Bring up the mortars! Let’s give that pretty little bastard a gift to remember the Rose by!"

"Aye, James!"

The two of them laid the twin mortars in practiced rhythm.

What went down the barrels this time was ammunition neither of them had yet fired outside dry practice, some heavier cast, packed with scrap iron and shrapnel, with the fuse cut shorter than any reasonable captain would have permitted.

Farrow worked the quoin with more care than the situation seemed inclined to allow. "Ye want her burstin’ open right over their bloody heads, scatterin’ iron like the Devil himself sneezed."

"And if the bloody thing don’t?"

"Then I’ve wasted a fine forgery, an’ ye can march yerself before His Majesty an’ tell him why."

Anne grunted and set the elevation, her hands steadier than her expression suggested.

Farrow watched idle months of tinkering finally get their chance to prove themselves in front of God, the Crown, and every soul aboard.

"Elevation’s true!"

"Fire!"

Both mortars roared together, and this time the shells didn’t wait to bury themselves before they spoke.

⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — True Shot

The first burst high over Swift’s deck in a spreading, nasty bloom. Scrap iron and shattered casing rained down through her rigging and the sailors there were thrown straight from her foretop, striking the deck hard enough to bounce.

In a single breath, Swift’s forward deck became a slaughterhouse.

The canvas tore loose in white strips, and her mainmast groaned, leaned, and crashed across the waist in a tangle of rope and splintered timber. What remained of the gun crews was buried in a bloody mess beneath it before a single gun of hers had fired back.

She sat dead and smoking, out of the fight before she had entered it.

The Rose’s crew erupted in a roar that spread clean across the water, cheering the King’s sloop into wreckage.

James grinned through all of it, broad enough for his face to ache, then hauled the wheel over and swung the Rose’s bow toward the two ships still standing.

"Right then."

James called, loud enough for the whole deck to hear him over itself.

"Let’s introduce ourselves to the other two."

Shark kept her course dead ahead.

Winchelsea finally came on behind her, her patience spent at last, almost in panic.

James drove the Rose forward to meet them both and discovered that, somehow, he still hadn’t stopped grinning.