Chapter 68: Calloway’s Fleet
The captured corvette drifted beyond the reach of Fort Louis, sitting stubbornly on the water while men who’d barely learned one end of a marlinspike from the other discovered that repairs demanded patience.
Rigging that could still be saved was spliced back together, while the rest earned a steady stream of curses. The bell was sounded so often that James eventually decided the fellow doing it simply enjoyed repeating the good news.
Beyond the haze of drifting smoke, the Rose sailed a slow circle outside Mobile’s harbor. Cudjoe and Farrow handled her without needing a single order from him.
James watched the brigantine work her mortar from a comfortable, disrespectful distance. He felt something suspiciously close to pride.
By the time the sun had climbed farther across the sky, three thick pillars of smoke rose black and steady above Mobile.
Spanish blackmail, a courtship ruined at a checkpoint, and one unforgettable evening spent face-down in shite had all led here. Now the city burned exactly as promised.
The depots had always been the easy part. James and his merry crew had marked every one of them, leaving Farrow with little more to do than put mortar shells where they’d already been told to go.
The powder storage inside the fort wasn’t so easy, but James had not climbed that accursed wall just to watch the place survive out of sheer spite.
The Rose made four more attempts. James watched each one from the corvette’s deck.
Every mortar blast rolled across the bay. Every shell climbed into the sky with the familiar arc before dropping back toward the fort. Every time, the earthworks and stone absorbed the punishment while the one building that actually mattered sat untouched, smug as a bloody bastard.
"That’s four, Cap’n."
Jim folded his arms against the rail, watching the distant fort with some disappointed expression.
"Reckon Farrow’s aim’s took a holiday."
James shrugged. "He’ll want it back eventually. Man can’t live off a reputation forever."
"Five shillin’ says the fifth one lands in the harbor instead."
"Five shillin’ says ye’re a pessimist, Jim. I’ll take that wager gladly."
Four misses had a way of making a man question whether the fifth shot deserved the powder. They’d burned the depots. They’d bloodied the garrison. They’d smashed a respectable hole through the fort’s wall besides.
Any sensible captain would’ve called that a successful morning and sailed away content.
James had never once in his life been mistaken for a sensible man.
"One more."
He spoke mostly to the rail and partly to himself, though Jim stood close enough to hear.
"If Farrow can’t hit it, nobody can. I’ll not be remembered as the captain who called it off one shot too soon."
The fifth shell climbed high, just like the others. It hung against the pale afternoon sky, just like the others.
Then something about the way it started to fall made James smile before it landed.
This one was different.
🏴 [PERK ACTIVATED] — True Shot
James grinned wide enough to tug at the cut across his cheek. He still hadn’t the faintest notion how the damned thing worked, yet ignorance suited him just fine.
The shell punched clean through the some roof, blasting apart timber as dirt sprayed into the air.
Nothing else happened.
Fort Louis stood exactly where she’d stood a minute earlier, only with a fresh hole in one roof and considerably more smug than before.
Edmund watched the scene with attention.
"I confess myself unconvinced that shot achieved anything beyond further ventilation, Captain."
"Certainly," Wesley agreed, though nobody had asked him anything.
James let out a slow breath. A man could only ask so much from one day.
A fight this loud would bring every nearby French captain sniffing around for answers soon enough, and James had no desire to remain behind explaining himself to one carrying heavier guns.
"Right then."
He turned toward the wheel with an easy grin.
"That’s enough of Farrow’s tricks for one..."
The bay shuddered.
The tremor reached the deck through his boots before the thunder ever touched his ears. Even the water seemed to recoil a full heartbeat before the noise arrived.
Then it did.
One immense crack swallowed every other sound in the bay.
Fort Louis’s powder storage exploded from the inside, fire erupted through the hole hurling timber, earth, and whatever else happened to be inside a hundred feet into the sky.
A towering pillar of black smoke followed, thick enough to blot out the sun for a heartbeat.
The shockwave raced across the bay and slammed into the corvette like a giant’s fist, rattling every loose fitting aboard while gulls burst screaming into the air. Whatever poor souls had been standing near that storage when it happened, and there would’ve been some despite every precaution, vanished with the building.
James stood motionless, watching enough powder to supply a fort bellow to the entire bay. For one long moment, not a single clever remark entered his head.
He simply stared.
Half a heartbeat later the corvette erupted into celebration.
"That’s mine, that is!"
Kit threw both fists into the air, bouncing in place as though the explosion had been his own personal achievement.
"I said the fifth one’d do it! Somebody heard me say that, didn’t they?"
"Nobody heard ye say that, lad," Silas Hollis shot back, "on account of ye never said it."
"I said it in me head."
"Doesn’t count."
"It bloody well does if I’m right!"
Ezra slapped his brother across the shoulder, still grinning at the smoke billowing over Mobile.
"Told ye that shot looked different the moment it left the barrel, Silas. Knew it in me gut."
"Ye told me nothin’ of the sort. Ye were half asleep against the rail."
"A man can know things in his sleep."
Jim was already improving the story before the smoke had finished rising. He swept an arm grandly toward the ruined fort as though performing for an audience that simply hadn’t arrived yet.
"They’ll be singin’ about this in every tavern from here to Nassau by Christmas, and I’ll be the one singin’ it. Man survives a fort explodin’ beneath his own feet, now that’s a tale worth..."
"Ye were standin’ on a ship, Jim."
"Details improve with tellin’."
James let that one pass. A man who’d just watched an entire fort tear itself apart deserved a little nonsense.
"Right then!"
He clapped his hands together, grinning without restraint now. "That’s the work finished, and finished proper. Bring her about, we’ll meet the Rose and be well clear of whatever’s left of that fort before somebody less polite than us comes lookin’ to settle the score."
Canvas dropped and filled, and for the first time since the naval battle, both ships closed the distance under their own sail.
The Rose swung neatly onto the corvette’s course, drawing close enough within the hour for voices to carry clearly across the water again.
Cudjoe’s voice carried over the water, dry as old rope. "And here ye are grinnin’ like a man who’s just been handed his own weddin’ cake. Dinnae know how ye manage it."
"Aye, well."
James kept his hands on the wheel.
"It’s the finest gift anybody’s ever given me. Does wonders for the soul."
He looked slowly over the captured ship beneath his feet while the Rose stood side by side beside her. She was battered, her crew was from another ship and only ten of her sixteen guns could still be trusted.
Yet somewhere between the fight and the explosion, he’d completely abandoned any thought of selling her at the first port willing to pay.
She’d need a proper crew soon enough. She’d need a proper name as well. No ship could sail beneath his flag while still calling herself Le Faucon or some other bloody French name.
He considered the question only as long as it took to glance once more at the black smoke climbing over what remained of Fort Louis.
"Black Fortune!"
He raised his voice so it carried across both decks and the stretch of water between them.
"That’s her name from this day on! Seems proper enough for any respectable captain."
He caught himself grinning like a fool.
He decided he didn’t care.
The two ships held their course together with full canvas, leaving Mobile behind beneath a haze of smoke that would keep French officials inventing explanations for the better part of a year.
James watched the pair of hulls sail side by side while the familiar display appeared before him without needing to be summoned.
🏴 [FLEET OVERVIEW — CALLOWAY’S FLEET]
Bloody Rose — Flagship
Type : Brigantine
Size : Large for her class
Role : Line Combatant
Armament : 20 Broadside Cannons, 1 Mortar
Status : Underway, Combat Ready
Black Fortune — Escort
Type : Corvette
Size : Average for her class
Role : Skirmisher
Armament : 16 Broadside Cannons (10 Combat Ready)
Status : Underway, Damaged
The corvette technically belongs to you now. This conclusion is based on the longstanding maritime principle that everyone capable of disputing ownership has exploded.
James read the display, smiling the entire time.
Fleet.
He rather liked the sound of that word, whether he admitted it aloud or not.