Chapter 116: Death Through the Stern
⚔ [BATTLE OVERVIEW]
ALLIED — PIRATE ARMADA
Bloody Rose — Engaged, Maneuvering
Black Fortune — Engaged, Maneuvering
Revenge — Engaged, Combat
Marianne — Engaged, Combat
Barsheba — Engaged, Command
Cormorant — Engaged, Combat
Postillion — Engaged, Combat
Providence — Engaged, Combat
Auxiliary Swarm — Engaged, Combat
ENEMY — HOMEWARD FLEET ESCORT
HMS Falmouth — Combat Ready, Maneuvering
HMS Tartar — Combat Ready, Maneuvering
HMS Lyme — Combat Ready, Maneuvering
HMS Royal Anne Galley — Engaged, Maneuvering
Cuban Flank (4 Sloops) — Engaged, Combat
Bank Flank (4 Sloops) — Engaged, Combat
Rear Escort (2 Sloops) — Engaged, Maneuvering
James kept the Bloody Rose on course and forced himself to take in the battle as a whole before his attention focused to the enemy directly ahead.
The sea had become a dozen battles at once, each one fighting to its own rhythm. Near the Cuban shore, an English sloop burned from bow to stern, flames racing through her rigging until it crashed in glowing strands. Men who had already lost the deck hurled themselves into water that offered little more mercy than the fire behind them.
Not far away, one pirate sloop had rolled onto her side and was sinking by degrees. Her crew clawed their way across what had become a vertical deck, shouting desperately for boats that were already fighting battles of their own.
Between the wrecks floated bodies face down in the swell while others still struggled through water stained red with blood.
Thatch found destruction in his own unmistakable fashion. A mortar shell from the Revenge plunged through the deck of an English sloop before it exploded deep inside her hull. Timbers burst upward in a storm of splinters, and men flew from their feet.
Before the wreck had even finished shuddering, the Revenge closed to within fifty yards and unleashed a broadside. The guns ripped a hole through the sloop’s side wide enough for a longboat to pass, and fire erupted from deep below, swallowing what remained.
Jennings fought the battle with command as much as cannon.
The Barsheba carved through the chaos with flags that streamed overhead, to point to the schooners captains toward opportunities they never would have noticed alone.
Black Sam’s Marianne remained locked alongside an English sloop that simply refused to sink. Both ships were ripped open on their sides, and grapeshot had swept their decks so thoroughly that only fools still stood upright.
James watched the battle longer than he should have, wanting to see which crew finally broke, before Royal Anne ahead demanded his attention.
"Farrow! The mortars, now! Put them somewhere they’ll feel!"
"Aye, Cap’n!"
Farrow was already crouched over the mortar, one eye closed as he lined up the shot with concentration.
"Elevation’s true. Touch her off!"
Anne stood over the sister mortar with the linstock ready. Only weeks earlier she’d been asking endless questions about the weapon. Now she needed no explanations.
"Ready!"
"Fire!"
Both mortars thundered as one. The deck lurched beneath James’s boots hard enough to rattle his bones while the shells climbed together before plunging into the Royal Anne.
One smashed into her amidships and burst with a violence that seemed to lift the frigate clear of the sea. Oak planking exploded outward in every direction, replaced by a storm of splinters that tore through the men crowded along the waist.
Those still on their feet staggered blindly through drifting smoke, shouting over one another without any notion of where the next blow would fall. One sailor managed only a few stumbling steps before looking down at the bloody ruin of his wrist, his missing hand gone somewhere into the wreckage.
The next shell arrived before the cries begun to fade. It smashed through the deck beside the forward hatch, and the blast drove fire the length of the battery before thick black smoke rolled through the gunports and swallowed the guns from sight.
Men came out of it in desperate confusion, some half-blinded, others dragging shipmates who no longer had the strength to move on their own. The officers bellowed for the crews to stand to their guns, but no one could even see the battery anymore, let alone fight it.
James barked out a laugh that was wild even to himself.
"That’ll teach her to stand still!"
He reined in the urge to close the distance and kept the Rose far away, where she had the advantage.
"Starboard battery! Fire as she bears!"
The Rose answered with a crashing broadside.
The Royal Anne fired nearly together, both volleys crossing through a wall of drifting smoke. The English shot splashed harmlessly into the sea, throwing up white fountains well short of their mark. The Rose’s guns fared little better, scattering around the target with near misses and towering pillars of spray.
Accuracy was not the point. The exchange only needed to hold the frigate’s attention. The true attack was still coming.
While the Royal Anne remained on the Rose, the Fortune swept in behind her, sails trimmed hard driving her forward with relentless speed. No gun aboard the English frigate could bear directly astern. Her captain discovered that unpleasant truth one yard at a time as the Fortune closed untouched.
"Rake her stern!" Mary Read’s voice cracked across the Fortune’s deck like a whip. "Fire!"
The broadside struck squarely through Royal Anne’s stern and ripped through the length of the ship.
The stern windows burst inward in a storm of shattered glass and flying timber, never built to withstand iron shot. Officers disappeared beneath the blast before they even understood they were under attack while the cannonballs tore onward through the gun deck, smashing through packed gun crews shoulder to shoulder.
Men vanished in clouds of splinters and blood, others were hurled across the deck with limbs bent into random directions, or crashed without a sound as iron punched through flesh, oak, and the men standing behind them. Those still alive could only stare in stunned disbelief before the next screams swallowed them.
The cries that rose from below were not the sharp shouts of men still fighting, but the raw, hopeless screaming of sailors trapped beneath shattered beams and overturned cannon, calling for help that would never reach them. Smoke rolled through the deck, carrying the stink of burnt powder and fresh blood while the wounded dragged themselves through wreckage slick beneath their hands.
Then the rudder gave way.
A deafening crack rolled across the water as the massive timbers splintered apart, the steering component ripping free from the stern. The entire frigate lurched violently, her bow wandering off course as though some giant hand beneath the sea had seized her spine and snapped it in two.
On the Fortune, Bonnet stood beside his wheel, his hands moving with the confidence hard command had finally taught him. Yet his expression looked ready to lean over and empty his stomach. Terror and exhilaration fought for possession of his heart, and neither seemed willing to give way.
The Royal Anne drifted where she lay, her helm gone and her decks torn apart.
No broadside came. The men who still stood had abandoned their guns for the wounded, hauling shipmates from shattered beams and blood-soaked planking. Whatever fight remained aboard belonged to the surgeons now.
James watched her for a heartbeat, then dismissed her with a flick of his hand.
Crick saw the gesture at once.
Together the two pirate ships sailed past the crippled frigate without another shot. There was no glory in pounding a beaten ship into the bottom, only needless slaughter.
Ahead, beyond the curtain of black smoke, the man o’ war waited.