Chapter 242: A Fool’s Errand, Apparently

The Rose’s gun crews stood ready at their pieces, sweat cutting through the powder soot on faces that hadn’t the time to celebrate one kill before the next two came looking for them.

Cudjoe moved down the deck, checking tackle with his hands and showing no particular interest in being gentle with the lads that failed his inspection. "Grin about the sloop once there’s nae two more bloody ships tryin’ tae send us all tae Davy Jones, ye idle article. Eyes forward, afore I tan yer hide meself."

Not a soul dared to argue, or had enough breath left for it, either.

James watched the horizon from the wheel. Shark lay dead ahead of the Rose’s bow while Winchelsea came in behind her off the quarter, the two captains trying to box him between them with cannonfire from both sides.

It was a perfectly reasonable plan, which was unfortunate for them.

The Rose didn’t care about reason.

James threw the wheel hard over and drove through the distance the two English captains meant to close, the Rose heeling beneath him as her guns and rigging seemed to swing across the sky.

"Hard over with her! We close the distance, not ’em!"

Cudjoe watched the two ships alter course a beat too late and looked no more impressed than when he watched a couple hens discover the same piece of corn.

He snorted dryly. "His Majesty’s captains have read the same tired auld manual every lubber afloat has tried an’ failed wi’ this year. Ye’d think the bloody bastards in London might’ve the wit tae scribble a new one."

"Might be they’re savin’ the fresh one for a proper foe, once they’ve the wit to find one."

"Aye, an’ pigs might grow wings an’ take tae the riggin’ while they’re at it."

The Rose answered her helm faster and meaner, her claret canvas cracking tight as the whole deck lunged underfoot.

Shark, committed to the broadside she had started on, suddenly found herself alone. Winchelsea, being heavier and slower to answer her wheel, reached for water that was no longer there.

Kit’s voice came down from the rigging, eager as ever. "She’s dancin’ rings round the pair o’ them, Cap’n! Two King’s ships, and she’s slippin’ between ’em like they’re two rotten posts nailed to the seabed!"

The sloop got her broadside away first, all nine guns across her flank erupting together in a wall of flame and smoke. The cannonfire crossed the narrow stretch of water and hammered into the Rose’s side with a concussion that shook the deck beneath every pair of boots.

⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — Devil’s Hull

The timbers took the blow and groaned.

The hull shuddered from stem to stern, but then ignored the damage. Some dust and a scatter of splintered paint fell across the planking, and that was all the harm it did.

"Was that meant to be a broadside, or His Majesty’s grand way o’ wishin’ us a bloody good mornin’?"

The laugh that followed spread down the deck.

Cudjoe didn’t so much as blink.

"Run the guns out! She’s earned an answer for that insult!"

James bellowed the order while Shark’s smoke was still hanging low.

The Rose answered with everything she had.

Twenty some guns erupted at once, their flashes punching through the smoke as the whole broadside slammed across the water.

⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — True Shot

Every shot went where it was aimed.

Shark’s hull exploded inward under the barrage. Planks burst apart, beams cracked, and the gun deck vanished beneath splinters, smoke, and screaming sailors. Her crews were ripped from their pieces in a single bloody sweep, the work of the guns ending in wreckage where men and tackle had stood moments before.

Her mast shuddered, hung for one terrible heartbeat, then went over into the sea trailing rope, canvas, and men tangled helplessly in the falling rigging.

The water poured through a wound no hull her size was built to survive.

The sloop heeled hard as the sea rushed through her torn side. Her deck pitched, sailors were swept into the water, and the crew stumbled over wreckage as she began to go down by the head.

She was done fighting before her next broadside could even have been rammed home.

The Rose’s crew celebrated with a roar loud enough to carry across the open water, and James grinned through all of it before hauling the wheel over to bring her bow around on the one ship still standing.

He shouted towards the deck. "Swab and load, lads, and be bloody quick about it! We’ll not get another invitation to finish the job!"

The turn gave the crews just enough time to breathe and reload while Winchelsea came steadily on, despite having watched her sloops go under.

Thirty guns were coming now, and they meant to finish what the smaller ships had begun.

Jim, hauling on a brace with both hands, still couldn’t keep quiet. "Mark it well, ye scallywags! That damned frigate’s mine for the tally, same as the eel an’ the shark, an’ I’ll have no bastard aboard this deck denyin’ me the glory o’ it!"

Both ships fired together as the range closed.

Two broadsides crashed across the water as one, and the smoke swallowed the ships in an instant.

This time Winchelsea’s broadside found its mark.

Rail burst apart along the Rose’s waist and splinters tore through the smoke and sailors went down in heaps as the blast ripped across the deck, leaving the gun crews scrambling through wreckage and blood.

A knot of sailors near the foremast went down together.

The next wave of splinters and broken timber buried the deck around them, and their mates dragged the fallen while the guns thundered on.

⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — Devil’s Hull

The blow that ought to have cut her side properly only shook the Rose.

She lurched under the impact, timbers screaming, but the hull refused to give.

Hobbs was down among the wounded, working his way through them with flat patter. "Ye’ll live, damn ye! Aye, ye’ll live an’ all, so quit that squallin’. I’ve patched up worse after a card-table brawl. Rum first, then ye may scream yer lungs out, that’s the order aboard this ship."

The Rose’s broadside tore into Winchelsea’s forward timbers in turn.

The frigate’s bow vanished behind flame and smoke as shot smashed through her forward works, ripping open planking and sending broken timber and gun tackle flying across the deck. Her great hull staggered through the water as though struck by a hammer.

She held together and kept her guns answering despite it.

The next exchange decided the fight.

Winchelsea’s mainmast came down in a long, groaning collapse, the great spar tearing loose with a crack that could be heard even through the guns. It crashed across the deck and dragged half her canvas into the sea with it, rigging spilling after it like a net.

Her gun crews were shaken badly enough that what little fire she returned went wide, striking little more than paint and rope.

By the time the smoke cleared, Winchelsea rode low and wounded, her deck a wreck of fallen spars and silent guns.

She was still afloat, but finished as a warship.

The Rose wore her light scars almost proudly, while her crew secured rigging and checked guns.

James let the wheel ease.

Puzzlement caught him harder than triumph, and before he had properly decided to say anything, the whole question came tumbling out of his mouth.

"What in God’s name were they thinkin’, sendin’ that against my lass?"

News travels slowly across an ocean, and it travels slower still after passing through a Spanish governor with his neck to save.

By the time word of a devil-ship sinking navies reached a clerk’s desk in London, it was likely to have been put beside sea serpents and every other tale a frightened colonial official had invented to explain away his failures.

"So they reckoned it was all horseshite."

I imagine some admiral in a very fine office figured that three warships ought to be more than enough against an overexcited privateer with a talent for rumor.

I confess I find the blunder almost charming.

"I’d call it bloody stupid, myself."

He looked over the wrecked frigate, now close enough for her deck to be plainly seen.

Some of her crew were fighting to get a dismounted gun back onto its trucks, or beating out a fire near her waist with wet canvas and buckets hauled up from over the side.

James had no inclination to keep guessing when the answer was close enough to board.

"Cudjoe! Kwaku! Away a boardin’ party, now!"

For the moment, not a soul aboard the Rose had an answer to the question sitting before them.