Chapter 112: A Fleet Worth Bragging About
James found himself alone for once. He stopped on the Rose’s quarterdeck, content to enjoy the view before someone inevitably came looking for him.
Cuba stretched across the southern horizon as a low green strip, hazy enough that it nearly vanished into the distance. The Rose was docked close to shore beside the other heavy ships stationed to push from that flank.
Farther north, beyond water too shallow for anything the size of a ship of the line risk, the cays of the Great Bahama Bank concealed the lighter vessels. Lighter sloops and schooners waited across the islets and sandbars in numbers enough to choke them once the convoy appeared. If they press hard from the south, a frightened merchant fleet would have only one way left to flee, straight toward the banks and every hidden ship waiting there.
James let his gaze wander across the anchorage while he still had the silence. The Fortune floated close enough to hail. Thatch’s Revenge rode farther out, burdened with more guns than any sensible captain would have loaded aboard. Bellamy’s Marianne, Jennings’ Barsheba, Vane’s Cormorant, Levasseur’s Postillion, Burgess’s Providence.
One by one he counted them, and with each name the truth sank in a little deeper. From where he stood, he could take in the whole of Nassau’s ambition with a single sweep of his eyes.
Eight ships, with a swarm of smaller craft besides. They had all joined together because one mad brigantine had somehow convinced them she had the guts to face a man o’ war. James grinned out across the water and let himself the satisfaction while it lasted.
A boat pushed away from the Fortune before he’d finished enjoying himself. Bonnet climbed up the side with the cautious movements of a man who had learned, through painful experience, what happened when he grew careless.
A month of real command had changed him. His coat was still expensive, tailored far too finely for the deck of a corvette, but salt had dulled its hue. The wig had disappeared entirely, replaced by his own hair tied back like any sailor’s. His skin had browned beneath the sun, and he crossed a deck now with a confidence that simply hadn’t existed back in Nassau.
"Och, would you look at you."
James clapped him on the shoulder. "Nassau wouldn’t know ye without the wig."
"The wig did not survive a squall somewhere past Exuma, Captain."
Bonnet smiled, silently pleased with himself. "I confess I have not missed it as much as I expected to."
"Aye, suits ye better bare-headed anyway. Makes ye look less like a man beggin’ to be robbed."
Bonnet turned toward the fleet, following James’s gaze across the pirate ships. "I spent most of my life thinking a single ship was responsibility enough. To stand here and see all this... It rather sets the heart racing."
"Aye, it is that."
James rested an elbow on the rail. "Speakin’ of which, how’d yer month go? Real command, real prizes. Tell me true."
"Four ships, all told."
Bonnet folded his hands behind his back with some neat posture. "Two surrendered before we’d properly finished announcing ourselves, which did wonders for my own nerves, I don’t mind saying. A third required a single shot across her bow before her captain saw reason. The fourth wished to test us until Mark placed a shot through her rigging close enough to persuade him otherwise."
Behind them, near the mainmast, Pete was losing badly at cards again, judging by the shouting. Doyle uncorked another bottle of whatever horror he’d been brewing and poured generous cups without waiting to be asked.
Rook won another hand wearing some unreadable expression, while Twice had already wagered his share of a prize nobody had captured yet, acting as though the convoy’s silver already belonged to him.
"Whitlock’s tallied the whole of it to the shilling, naturally,"
Bonnet went on. "Crick insisted the expedition was blessed from the start because of some cloud formation over Concordia on the morning we sailed. I decided not to ask for further explanation."
Closer to the rail, Kit entertained Tomás and Ned with the tale of the Rose’s fight against the Guarda Costa sloops. By Kit’s telling, the Spanish had outnumbered them nearly ten to one, every broadside had found its mark, and James had somehow steered the brig through a gap no wider than her own beam. By the time he reached the end, there was at least one whale involved, despite nobody ever recalling a whale being anywhere near the fight.
James laughed. "Four ships and not a scratch on the Fortune. That’s more than I managed my own first month out."
"I suspect luck deserves most of the credit, Captain."
Bonnet gave a modest bow.
"Though I’ve decided not to correct anyone who believes otherwise."
The smile gradually left his face as his eyes returned to the anchored fleet. "A frightened merchant striking surrender is one thing, Captain. A ship of the line standing to their guns, knowing it’ll cost them their commissions and very likely their necks besides, is another thing entirely."
He spoke without drama, as calmly as a man admitting he’d misplaced a possession.
"I find myself considerably more nervous about the whole affair than I’d like to admit."
Nearby, Mackerel Jim was explaining that he’d once been on a crew that defeated a man o’ war off Tortuga. The ending changed twice before he reached it, but that never seemed to trouble him.
A short distance away, Hobbs sat sharpening his instruments without ever lifting his eyes from the task, looking very much he already estimated how many sailors he would be stitching back together before this battle ended.
Farther along the deck, Bert, Edmund, and Wesley inspected their pistols and blades with the relaxed politeness they might have shown while passing a supper dish.
They discussed, in complete and perfectly civilized sentences, exactly how many cannonballs a fourth-rate’s broadside was likely to send through anyone standing where they stood now. None of them appeared particularly bothered by the conclusion.
James put a hand on Bonnet’s shoulder. "My friend, you took four ships and didn’t lose a man doin’ it. Some captain who can manage that already knows how to keep his head when it matters. You’ve just forgotten it for the minute, is all."
Behind them, Anne had Farrow trapped beside the mortar while she questioned him about every part of the thing. How far could it throw? How much powder did it need? What happened if someone misjudged the charge?
Farrow answered every question with obvious satisfaction, like a proud father showing off an unusually troublesome child. At last, someone aboard wanted the full lecture instead of only the result.
James caught the end of the exchange and found himself smiling.
"See that?"
He nodded toward them. "Weeks ago she couldn’t tie a decent knot, and now she’s talkin’ Farrow’s own ear off about ballistics. Whole crew’s better than they were, you included. You’ll do fine, Bonnet."
Bonnet’s smile returned, small but genuine. "I shall attempt to remember that, Captain. Assuming my nerve doesn’t abandon me the moment her first broadside actually arrives."
Neither of them felt any need to fill the silence that followed.
Near the foremast, Briggs watched a knot of idle hands repair rope with nothing more than a steady look, and their pace silently improved without a single order. Cudjoe stood nearby with his arms folded, saying nothing and doing even less, simply present.
A voice drifted up from the water before either man found another subject worth discussion.
"Ahoy th’ Rose! Where’s Cap’n Calloway, ye feckless dogs?"
James leaned over the rail and spotted a rowboat alongside. Black Sam Bellamy was already reaching for a rope to haul himself aboard, a grin spread across his face that suggested whatever brought him there was unlikely to be dull.