Chapter 135: The Rose Outgrows Herself
The trip back to Nassau could hardly have gone smoother. The wind stayed friendly from beginning to end, and once the last and every last cannon had been lifted off the Gilded Herring, Coombes and Bucket took their shares of the payment.
They shook every hand they could reach hard enough to make a fellow wonder if he still owned his shoulder, then wandered off into town with heavier purses than they’d carried a month ago.
The work was finished. The money was paid. There was nothing more to be said about it.
James stood on the Rose’s gundeck now, watching Farrow run a hand over the breech of one of the new guns, checking the carriage and breeching rope with the care another man might give a sheep before buying her.
A little farther along, Sawyer walked beside the hull with one hand against a fresh-cut gunport, muttering something under his breath to the timber. James neither caught the words nor cared to.
Neither man had any need of him just then. Farrow minded the iron, Sawyer minded the ship and James had learned long ago that a captain gained nothing by hurrying either one.
The nearest gunport still showed bright where the saw had gone through, with pale wood standing out against planks darkened by years of salt and weather.
Looking at it, James could see plain enough why any of this had worked in the first place.
The Bloody Rose had begun life as a merchantman, built for cargo instead of battle. A merchant hull left more room below than any purpose-built warship ever would, with fewer ribs crowding a shipwright’s work and more space between for cutting fresh gunports through her sides.
Sawyer laid his palm flat against the new timber as though he expected the old girl to answer him.
"Aye, ye’ll carry this too. Ye’ve stood worse than a few extra holes."
Of course, that extra room came with a price. A merchant hull had never been meant to loose that much iron from both sides at once, and every new gunport meant cutting into the very timbers that kept the ship together.
Most ships would not have stayed sound under that sort of bargain for very long.
James had stopped worrying over what sort of ship the Rose truly was some time ago, with the perks and all. That argument belonged to Sawyer and the sea now.
His gaze drifted from the hull to the row of fresh guns, and there was real satisfaction in watching them all cast alike. The symmetry was a pleasure by itself.
The Rose had started with eighteen guns, and everything after that had come from wherever fortune happened to leave it. Before long the broadside looked like a family argument, every cannon insisting it knew better than the one beside it.
He had complained about that himself before this whole business began. It was high time the battery agreed with itself for once.
The thought pleased him more than he would have guessed.
Farrow rubbed his thumb along the trunnion of the nearest gun without lifting his eyes.
"This one’s honest, at least. Knows her own weight, knows where she belongs."
James walked the row himself, counting without thinking. The tally from the wreck fell into place in his head one gun after another.
Sixteen had come from the Falmouth’s lower gundeck, all eighteen-pounders, the biggest guns she had carried. Those were the ones he, Mary, and Anne had sorted between sound and ruined while swimming the wreck.
Added to the Rose’s old battery, they brought her to forty-four guns. A month ago, a man saying that aloud would have been laughed clean out of the tavern.
The Fortune had done well enough too. Her lighter hull had taken lighter iron. Eight nine-pounders from the Falmouth’s upper deck, along with four more lifted from the wrecked escort sloop after that lively afternoon on the bank, brought her broadside to an even thirty.
Then there were the swivel guns. The haul was smaller, though easier to sort, scattered wherever the wreck had chosen to leave them. Four went aboard the Rose and two found their way onto the Fortune.
A swivel gun seldom decided a battle by itself, but no sensible sailor ever complained about having one close at hand.
James stepped back until he could take in the whole gundeck, both ships lining themselves up in his imagination. Before the thought had fully formed, the shimmer appeared before him.
🏴 [BLOODY ROSE — STATUS]
2
Hull Condition : Excellent (Freshly Refitted)
Armament : 44 Broadside Cannons, 2 Mortars, 4 Swivel Guns
Gunpowder Supply : 40 Casks
Provisions : 20 Days
Crew : 63 / 80
Morale : Unbreakable
Loyalty : Unwavering
Perks : [The Rose’s Luck], [True Shot], [Devil’s Hull]
🏴 [BLACK FORTUNE — STATUS]
Hull Condition : Good (Freshly Refitted)
Armament : 30 Broadside Cannons, 2 Swivel Guns
Gunpowder Supply : 24 Casks
Provisions : 18 Days
Crew : 59 / 90
Morale : Unbreakable
Loyalty : Unwavering
Perks : [Wind Dancer]
The two displays lingered another moment before fading away.
James clicked his tongue, pleased as could be.
Neither ship had an inch left to spare. Whatever room the perks had not already claimed had been given over to iron instead of hammocks or stores, and there was not a shipwright alive foolish enough to squeeze another gun aboard either lass without asking her to give up something she truly needed.
If they meant to grow stronger, it would not happen by cramming still more iron into hulls already carrying all they could bear.
It would have to come some other way.
More ships, perhaps.
Now there was an idea worth turning over for a spell.
"CAPTAIN!"
Cudjoe’s shout came down from the deck above, sharp enough to break the pleasant tour James had been enjoying over his new toys.
James looked up with half a grin already on his face. Trouble had found him again without bothering to knock first.
"Aye, comin’!" He headed for the ladder. "Work’s a miserable mistress, never lets a man sit long enough to admire what he’s done."