Chapter 287: The Runts Go to Work

An idle armada meant crews with no work to earn and lazy sailors to cause trouble.

James took a tankard from the crowd and brought it north. Every head in the hall accompanied it, though with rather more interest in what it meant for their pockets.

Charles Town, the Virginia Capes, Philadelphia, and the New England harbors had warehouses full of rice, tobacco, tar, pitch, flour, lumber, salt fish, and rum.

Three ships could return with their holds so full they’d scrape the reefs on the way in.

"Foghorn, Gabbler, Brazen Hussy!"

James’s voice cracked down the hall. "North with you, and as far up the coast as the wind’ll carry. And don’t come home light, d’ye hear me?"

He brought the three tankards across the chart in a single stroke, and the hall snapped, candle flames flinching all across the table.

Hal heaved up off the chair, a barrel in a coat, and brought his palm down on the table hard enough to make the whole thing jump. "NORTH! WHERE THE SUN KEEPS ITS HANDS TO ITSELF AN’ THE ONLY THING HOT IS THE RUM! I’LL HAVE A WHOLE SCALP BY WHITSUN, CAP’N, AN’ I’LL KISS YER BOOT FOR IT, SOLE AN’ ALL, SO HELP ME GAWD!"

Dai’s brow creased with gravity. "North, mun? Ah, but how far north is north, look you? I saw snow once, see, on a chapel roof in Pembroke, an’ I wept like a babby, I did, an’ what’s the Yankee for ’please’, tell me that, boyo, for I’ll not rob a man rude..."

Moll leaned across, hooked two fingers under his brim, and dragged the hat down over his jug-handle ears like a lid on a kettle. Dai continued regardless, muffled and unbothered.

"... ’cause there’s manners, mun, even in the plunderin’ of it, duw, duw..."

Her cackle went up like a startled rookery. "Boston lads, is it? Ah, the Almighty love ’em, the poor God-fearin’ creatures! An’ there’s nothin’ a God-fearin’ merchant loves better than a good fright, so there isn’t. Sure, I’ll be sendin’ a few home to mass meetin’ bowlegged an’ prayin’, an’ they’ll thank me for the sermon!"

The benches erupted, and there were now nine tankards where twelve had been. The sailors who hadn’t been given a ship were already reconsidering the value of a tranquil life.

James moved three more tankards southeast, to the long, fat curve of Saint-Domingue.

France was the one crown with no reason yet to send patrols swarming across the sea, and its harbors were still sleeping soundly. Cap-Fran?ais, Léogane, and Port-de-Paix loaded sugar, indigo, hides, tafia, and brandy for Nantes and Bordeaux.

Three ships could fill their holds with cargo without trouble.

"Winking Fox, Sweet Reprieve, Drowsy Duck! South to the sugar coast with you."

The grin went out of his voice for the next part, and the benches felt it go. "And if you find chains in a ship, you strike ’em off, every last shackles. The folk walk free under the Code, and the shares can go whistle for it."

"One eye’s plenty for a Frenchman, Cap’n,"

Olly said, his good eye as flat and dry as a merchant accounts.

"Cheats at everythin’ twice, a Frenchman does, so a second eye’d only go to waste on him."

Rob hammered his fists against his chest, drum corps for his enthusiasm. "Brandy, my lover! BRANDY! An’ tafia, an’ Frenchwomen that talk like they was singin’, good job, that! By Saint Piran’s drowned left sock, I’d sail for the brandy alone, my handsome, an’ call the rest a bonus!"

Lem lifted one finger from the bench with seriousness.

"Su-u-ug... aaar..."

Hal drained his mug, filled it again, drained that one too, and started on a third, and still the finger hung there, trembling. At last, it came from deep in the man.

"...fatt... en... in’."

The finger sank, the point made.

James picked up two mugs, brought them across the straits, and set them down on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico.

Pensacola had a friend in Juan de Ayala y Escobar who turned pirate goods into legitimate salvage for a quarter of the take and wanted the governor’s chair for himself,

Concordia now had the market, the customs house, and Esperanza’s network to make the new route pay, provided no one got greedy before the cargo arrived.

He told them low and easy. "Matron and Salty Tulip. Pensacola, and you go as genuine traders, rum in the hold and prize goods tucked down under the rum. Ask the man what he needs, and do it."

Then he flipped an unique piece of eight across the table, and Bess caught it with ease.

"Show him that, and tell him Calloway’s askin’ after the governor’s chair. He’ll know the rest."

Bess turned the coin over once in her palm. "Wey aye, a Spaniard, is it? Ah can fill his belly an’ empty his pocket in the one sittin’, an’ he’ll thank me for the bill an’ tip me for the privilege."

Hans slapped the bench and beamed around it. "Ja! A fool an’ his money, dey are soon parted, so! I find de fool, ja, an’ I am de parting! Is simple, hè?"

James took the last four tankards and set them across the dark southwestern corner of the chart, on the stretch of coast that spread from the Mosquito Shore around to Panama.

Chally’s picture had left him with timber jetty, a King’s ship, redcoats hacking a path into the jungle, fresh graves, and a brown river. That was enough to tell him where to look, but not enough to tell him exactly where to go.

He couldn’t pin the place down, so he sent four ships across the routes, and whoever found fresh British ships and fresh graves would know where to look next.

James put it clear, and set each tankard along the dark coast as he named its owner. "Silent Mouse, the Mosquito Shore. Plump Partridge, the Veragua coast. Sweet Lemon, Portobelo and the Chagres. Spry Eel, Darien."

He then nodded. "You’re pickets, the four, somewhere down that coast there’s redcoats, and I want them found. Look, count, come home, and tell me, and if your waters are clean, bring a prize for your trouble. Done and done."

Nat lurched to his feet, and bellowed it at the ceiling. "PICKLED?! I’VE BEEN PICKLED SINCE ME CHRISTENIN’, CAP’N! PRIEST DUNKED ME IN THE FONT AN’ I NEVER CAME UP DRY, LA! I’LL BRING ME OWN BRINE, YER CAN BET ON IT!"

Wat dabbed at his jowls with a rag. "Veragua.... hhhff... ’ot, they say... Lor’, Cap’n... I’m damp... in a snowstorm... I’ll land... a puddle... not a man... hhhff..."

Gil let out a deep, regretful sigh. "Portobelo, is it? Aye, well, happen that’s fittin’, ah’ve a cousin under three foot o’ sand theer, an’ he’s said nowt agin it since."

"Aye, sir. Darien."

Short Joss put it once, flat, and no ink wasted.

James lifted the boot off the chart and brought it east from Nassau.

He expected the Royal Navy to strike at Nassau and meant to know when. If the frigate was stationed hull-down off Eleuthera, she could spot a fleet two days before the island itself.

Her duty was to watch, and if the Union flag appeared in numbers, she would run straight back to Concordia.

This was the one dispatch he permitted to a single captain. "Royal Mistake. East of Nassau, past Eleuthera, hull-down where no lookout can spy ye. Watch, don’t fight, and if the King’s ships comes up in numbers, you run home and tell me."

"Aye, Cap’n. Eyes open, heels ready."

Tom nodded dully, with no more expression than asking for bread.

James set the boot down with a click, and the hall broke into little cliques, all complaining over who would sail with whom.

Every piece of tankard had been moved off the blank patch, and tomorrow’s tide would find the bay empty. The pirate armada would spread across a thousand leagues, from the Carolinas to Darien, and James wanted one thing out of all that water, a single black stone.

He grinned.

A man could weep at odds like those, but James had drowned once already and found the experience of little use.

The shimmer appeared above the chart.

?? [FLEET STATUS — CALLOWAY’S FLEET]

IN PORT (3)

Bloody Rose | Grand Dame | Black Fortune

HUNT EXPEDITIONS (6)

Thirteen Colonies : Foghorn, Gabbler, Brazen Hussy

French Sugar Coast : Winking Fox, Sweet Reprieve, Drowsy Duck

TRADE MISSIONS (2)

Pensacola : Matron, Salty Tulip

RECONNAISSANCE (4)

Mosquito Shore : Silent Mouse

Veragua Coast : Plump Partridge

Portobelo and Chagres : Sweet Lemon

Gulf of Darien : Spry Eel

SURVEILLANCE (1)

East of Nassau : Royal Mistake

CIVILIAN TRANSPORT (3)

Nassau : Merry Widow, Foolish Mistake, Pious Fraud

Of nineteen hulls, three remain at berth because you are fond of them. I have recorded this under sentiment, a variable I have never found useful. Four of the others are fishing for a single key with a line that has no hook. I admire the commitment.

I will be collecting data on all sixteen with great interest. Please do not mistake that for concern.