Chapter 119: The Old Duchess Fate
Grey had the wheel before the turn was fully done, one hand braced hard on the spokes while the other fought the lash of the weather. James left him to it without a word and cut across the Rose for the starboard battery, ducking under a rope as the deck rolled beneath him.
Rain stung his face while the ship stank of wet oak, powder smoke, and the sour reek of men too long in a fight.
The guns were alive all around him, with the breech ropes creaking and the powder boys running low and bent against the wind with the sacks hugged to their chests. A pair of hands were pushing one cannon back into rank while another crew swore over a swollen tackle that had gone stiff with spray.
Cudjoe stepped out from between two pieces near the waist, one arm raised to keep a sailor from shoving a hand too close to a hot side.
"Captain’s got no business haulin’ on a gun, wi’ a whole crew paid to do it for him."
"Then you’d best thank me for coming down before one of ye makes a pig’s breakfast of it."
James wiped rain from his eyes and grinned. "And I’ve had enough of watching men wrestle rope like drunk dockhands."
Cudjoe barked a snort and shoved a man back into place with the flat of his hand.
"Aye, that’s more like it. I was beginnin’ to think the rain had drowned your manners."
He was already bellowing fresh orders down the deck, voice cutting through rain and thunder alike.
James moved on and stepped past a coil of wet breeching and the black mouth of one gun still waiting for the next command. Farrow was farther down the battery, crouched beside a cannon with one palm on the carriage and the other on the side of the barrel, checking the line by eye while the ship lurched under him.
He glanced up as James came abreast.
"Cap’n’s takin’ an interest in our work now, is he?"
James looked at the gun, then at the spray running in silver sheets across the deck.
"Only because some of you would fire yourselves into the sea if no one watched close enough."
Farrow snorted and gave the carriage a final shove with his boot.
"On a day like this, that sounds more like prophecy."
James reached the main battery and found Anne there. She moved from gun to gun with a hand on each one, making certain every crew was ready.
She spotted him at once and made no effort to pretend otherwise. Her eyes flicked over him, rain and smoke and all, and there was that bright, dangerous look in them, half challenge and half invitation.
"Couldn’t stay out from under my feet, could ye?"
James gave the crooked little grin she drew out of him whether he liked it or not and stepped in beside her instead of answering right away. One of the carriages had twisted under the recoil and the gun crew was leaning into it, swearing through clenched teeth as the Rose lurched underfoot.
"I was told ye needed someone handsome to improve morale."
He planted both hands on the carriage and shoved with the men. The wheels bit, rolled, then caught while the piece came back into line with a grinding groan of wood and iron.
Anne watched him a moment too long before she answered.
"Careful. Keep making yourself useful like that and I might take you for myself."
James glanced up at her, rain in his lashes, and let his eyes linger with just enough of a spark to make the meaning plain.
"That sounds a great deal like a threat."
"Depends how badly you need one."
The crew snorted around them. Anne reached past him to clap the side of the gun carriage hard, sending the last of the men scrambling back into position.
"Again."
James eased off the timber and straightened, the grin still on his face.
"Aye, that one had teeth in it."
"And you’d best learn to mind them."
James let the words hang there a moment longer, then looked past her to the line of guns. The battery was readying itself around them already, tackles drawn tight, powder boys crouched low, every man waiting on his next order and the rise of the deck that would let him send the broadside in clean.
The rain swept across the sea in thick sheets, but the Falmouth kept coming larger. Her shattered upper works stood black beneath a sky the color of dead ash. The fires that had ravaged her were long drowned, though their scars still marked her sides.
The Rose swung hard onto her port quarter, timbers groaning as Grey brought her around until the reinforced starboard battery pointed straight into the old duchess’s flank. Beyond the Falmouth, visible only when the rain briefly eased, the Fortune made the same maneuver from the opposite side, bringing her own port battery to bear.
It looked like two doors closing on the same room.
The old girl had no answer left for either of them.
James let himself feel the time. The deck rose beneath his boots, held for the briefest instant at the crest of the swell, then dropped away again. He had fired guns from pitching decks often enough in another life to know exactly what he was waiting for.
Wait for the top.
Wait for the ship to hang there.
"Hold!"
He lifted a hand along the battery.
The Rose climbed.
She steadied.
"Fire!"
Fourteen guns exploded down the Rose’s starboard side. A heartbeat later, nine more thundered from the Fortune’s port battery through the curtain of rain.
⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — True Shot
The Falmouth took both broadsides at once and seemed to fold inward under the impact, as if the sea itself had struck her.
Gunports blew open in bursts of splintered oak and the men at the guns were cut apart where they stood, some hurled bodily against the opposite bulkheads, others simply vanishing beneath the crash of timber, iron, and blood.
The deck turned into a slaughterhouse, with hands clawing at the wreckage of their bodies, faces gone white with shock or red with blood, while officers shouted themselves hoarse and tried to drag the crews back into return fire.
It was useless.
The Falmouth reeled beneath the punishment, her timbers groaning as though the man o’ war were being ripped apart from the inside. Cracks appeared in her hull and water surged through fresh wounds faster than any pump could answer.
The smoke rolled low over the gun deck, thick with the stink of burnt powder, blood, and splintered oak, and through it all came the cries of the living, the moans of the dying, and the sharp crack of timber that gave away one after another, until the great old duchess seemed less a warship than a body being flayed open at sea.
When she finally answered, her reply came late and weak. Her broadside broke apart into scattered reports instead of a single volley. Each cannon fired whenever its crew managed to bring it into position, with no two guns finding the same moment.
Even so, the iron found both pirate ships.
Shots that heavy did not need perfect timing to kill.
⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — The Rose’s Luck
The old duchess would not die quietly.
One round shot smashed through the Rose’s waist, blowing the rail apart in a spray of splinters that tore across the gun deck. Two sailors crumpled where they stood, another staggered back clutching his shoulder, and before the wreckage had even finished bouncing across the planks, the nearest gun crew was already dragging the wounded clear and hauling their back into battery.
The Fortune fared worse.
One shot stove in the bulwarks and ricocheted the length of the deck, smashing through men, gun tackles, and a carriage before burying itself somewhere below. A burst of grapeshot from a swivel gun swept over the deck, cutting down sailors around the mizzenmast and leaving others writhing where they had fallen, the screams spreading across the water even through the rain.
It was enough to leave scars on both ships.
Nowhere near enough to stop either crew from fighting.
As the smoke thinned, the Falmouth emerged like a corpse through the rain. Great holes gaped both sides where the broadsides had torn her open, and the sea poured through them unchecked. Every swell rolled beneath her without resistance, leaving the old ship wallowing helplessly before the next wave struck.
A deep groan snapped across the water. The foremast shuddered once, its rigging snapping free in sharp reports before the whole spar gave way. It toppled over the bow in a slow, dreadful collapse, dragging torn canvas and a web of shattered cordage into the sea.
The storm had already passed the verdict.
He watched the dying ship for a moment, and an old instinct stirred before he could stop it.
The feeling vanished as it came. No sensible crew boarded a ship that size in seas like these.
Let her sink, then.
James turned away from the battery. Beyond the drifting wreck of the old duchess, the battle still raged through the rain.