Chapter 117: The Commodore’s Gambit
⚔ [BATTLE OVERVIEW]
ALLIED — PIRATE ARMADA
Bloody Rose — Engaged, Maneuvering
Black Fortune — Engaged, Maneuvering
Revenge — Engaged, Combat
Marianne — Engaged, Combat
Barsheba — Engaged, Combat
Cormorant — Engaged, Combat
Postillion — Engaged, Combat
Providence — Engaged, Combat
Auxiliary Swarm — Engaged, Damaged
ENEMY — HOMEWARD FLEET ESCORT
HMS Falmouth — Engaged, Maneuvering
HMS Tartar — Engaged, Combat
HMS Lyme — Engaged, Combat
HMS Royal Anne Galley — Crippled, Adrift
Cuban Flank — Engaged, Damaged
Bank Flank — Engaged, Damaged
Rear Escort — Engaged, Combat
The gun crews had already swabbed the mortars and rammed fresh charges home by the time the Rose and the Fortune broke free of their drifting smoke.
When James could finally see the battle board again, it had changed. Tartar and Lyme had forced their way back into the fight, clawing ground back for the British. They had paid dearly for every yard, but they had taken it all the same.
Lyme stood alone against three opponents now.
Marianne, Cormorant, and Revenge closed on her one after another, each ship hammering her with a broadside before she sheered away to make room for the next. The range was so close no respectable naval manual would have recommended it, and every exchange filled the sea with shattered timber while men went over the rails on every side.
Yet none of the four ships had managed to break the others.
James let that fight run its course and shifted his attention elsewhere.
Tartar had found the easier target.
She tore through the lighter swarm craft with brutal efficiency. One broadside ripped open a schooner’s hull below the waterline, another severely damaged a sloop. The pirate crews barely had time to throw themselves into the sea before the wreck slipped beneath the waves.
The frigate never even slowed.
Further away, Providence was fighting two battles at once.
Burgess stood at the wheel, shouting orders in opposite directions. One eye stayed on the British sloop trying to cut him apart while the other tracked a fleeing merchantman he still meant to drive toward the Bank instead of letting her escape.
Postillion came alongside and added her guns to the fight. Together they battered the sloop until her resistance began to unravel.
Nearby, Barsheba refused to abandon her own pursuit.
Jennings fought a running battle against another British sloop while still chasing the merchant prize he had marked for himself. Cannonballs splashed close enough to drench his deck, close enough to send most captains scrambling for cover.
Jennings never bothered to duck.
Between those larger engagements, the rest of the battle blurred together. A dismasted hulk rolled helplessly in the swell, some schooner burned until flames licked down to the waterline. Men screamed from a sea that had turned dark with blood.
James turned back to the fight that mattered.
Falmouth had waited through all of it.
Her commodore was plainly a man who understood patience. He had watched the battle unfold without rush, and refused to hand James the advantage an early commitment would have offered.
Now the ship advanced.
Her gunports stood open across both decks, sails trimmed for battle. The commodore brought her around with precision, placing Falmouth directly in front of the Rose and the Fortune before either pirate ship could trap her between them.
"Mortars!"
James roared across the deck. "Same welcome we gave the frigate! Let’s see if the old girl enjoys it any better!"
The sister shells arced high before crashing down across Falmouth’s deck. Fire sprang up where they burst and splinters tore through men and timber alike.
Even so, the damage looked minimal beside the devastation they had inflicted on the Royal Anne Galley. Falmouth belonged to an entirely different class of warship, and a hull that massive could absorb punishment that would have gutted anything smaller.
The Rose swung around, bringing her reinforced starboard side into position. It was the very tactic James had just used, only against a far tougher opponent.
At the same time, the Fortune swept wide, trying to round toward Falmouth’s stern.
The commodore had clearly heard how that fight had ended.
Before the Fortune could reach her position, Falmouth’s bow came around a fraction sooner than James expected. The turn shut off their plan completely and denied James the clean broadside he wanted.
Beside him, Cudjoe watched the maneuver and gave a low whistle.
"That’s nae a fool commandin’ her."
James lowered his spyglass.
"Aye. Pity for him, that."
Across the water, the gunports blossomed with flame.
"Brace!" James bellowed. "Hold fast!"
Her port battery crashed into the Rose’s starboard side while her starboard battery fired toward the Fortune. Neither exchange landed perfectly since smoke, motion, and distance robbed too many guns of a clean target.
Enough shots struck home to matter, fifty guns did not need perfect aim.
Part of the Rose’s deck burst inward in a shower of shattered oak and twisted iron.
One gunner collapsed with a scream as a splinter as thick as a man’s wrist tore through his forearm, peeling flesh away and leaving the bone exposed. Blood sprayed across the gun carriage as he clutched the ruined limb.
High above, another sailor was ripped from the rigging. He struck the deck hard enough to crumple, leaving a dark smear where his body hit.
Elsewhere along the deck, the damage spread without discrimination. Splinters tore through arms and legs, men stumbled bleeding from cuts across their faces, and others dragged the wounded clear of the guns while the crews closed ranks and kept firing.
The Rose’s reinforced hull endured the punishment. The heavy timbers soaked up blows that would have ripped open an ordinary ship. James felt the deck tremble beneath his boots, but the hull held fast.
The Fortune suffered more.
She lacked the Rose’s heavier construction, and the difference showed.
The cannonballs smashed through a gunport amidships, driving iron and splintered oak the length of the gun deck. Men went down all along the battery, some clutching bloody wounds, others left motionless where they fell. Blood slicked the planks beneath the guns as shattered timber and torn tackle turned the deck into a killing ground.
"Whatever bears, fire!"
Mary Read shouted through the smoke aboard the Fortune. "Don’t wait for a clean shot. We haven’t got one!"
The strain in her voice was impossible to miss.
Bonnet never left the quarterdeck.
His hands stayed steady through habit earned over the past month, even if the rest of him looked ready to come apart. Fear and command still wrestled inside him, and neither had won.
Grapeshot from the swivel guns skipped across the water while some chase gun blasted a hole through a furled sail overhead.
James steadied himself as the Rose lurched beneath the last of the impacts. Smoke rolled across the deck, carrying the sharp bite of burnt powder and fresh blood. Through the drifting haze, Falmouth still held her course.
His grip on the wheel tightened.
"Steady... steady..."
The range closed another few yards.
"Fire as she bears!"
The Rose’s guns struck first, the Fortune’s a heartbeat later until the two volleys merged into one continuous roar. The round shots smashed into Falmouth’s side, ripping through her rails, battering her gunports, and sending great clouds of splintered oak across the decks.
Men vanished beneath the storm of flying timber as the rigging came down in tangled heaps, while fires kindled wherever they found dry wood among the wreckage.
For a moment, James almost believed the weight of that punishment had been enough.
Then the smoke drifted apart.
Falmouth had taken the beating. Fresh scars ran the length of her hull, her upper works were torn open in places, and fires still burned across her decks, but the great ship had weathered it all.
Her massive timbers had absorbed a punishment that would have crippled a lesser warship, and as she continued to hold her course, James understood they had done little more than bloody an enemy that could still fight.
As the smoke thinned between the ships, both sides altered course.
James finally admitted what the last exchange had made obvious.
This battle would not end as cleanly as the one before it.
The wind still favored him.
Everything else would have to be earned.
Almost without thinking, he glanced skyward, like a man checking on a debt he wished would disappear.
The sky was waiting.
The bright, empty blue from earlier had vanished beneath clouds the color of wet slate. They hung low over the channel, heavy enough to make the whole horizon feel smaller.
The storm was no longer a possibility.
It was coming.