Fortune's Whelp (Fortune's Whelp Series Book 1)

by Benerson Little

  “Northeast,” he muttered after a few moments, “Milford Haven. I hate the idea of running when the owners need this cargo in Bristol, but twice is enough, I’ll not be taken a third time.”

  He turned to his mate and gave orders to change their course to north by northeast. They would now sail closer to the wind, but the Virginia sailed swiftly, both by and large. Cocklin shouted orders to his mate and the helm to change course.

  “A sail! A sail!” came suddenly the lookout’s shout again.

  “Damn, and damn again!” muttered Cocklin, then shouted “Where?”

  “Larboard abeam! She sets sail!” And a few minutes later: “She stands southeast to our forefoot!”

  “Avast there!” Cocklin shouted to his mate and helmsmen. “Keep your present course!”

  Edward smiled grimly. The lookout, distracted by the two ships to the south, had missed the ship to the north. Edward’s gut told him the third ship was another seeker who’d kept her sails furled with rope yarns or in brails, waiting to sight a likely prize. Now it was a pair to the south and one to the north. Those to the south could cover anything heading from the Atlantic to the south of Britain or Ireland, and the one to the north could take or delay anything that ran in that direction. There was no chance now of running north, certainly not to Milford Haven.

  Capture seemed inevitable, and by their manner half the crew and passengers already looked ready to surrender.

  Chapter 17

  Fortune aids the bold.

  —Virgil et al, 3rd century BC

  “Perhaps she’s not a privateer, the third, I mean,” Captain Cocklin suggested hopefully.

  Edward discounted the wishful thinking. “There’s almost no chance she’s an English cruiser, much less a common merchantman. And I’ll warrant those two to the south sail well by a wind. French privateer or French man-of-war, it makes no difference. Respectfully, assuming you intend to run, and I think you must, you should lighten ship as a precaution. She’s foul, after all.”

  “She’s no more foul than the privateers in these waters, and even fouled she can outsail just about any ship, even one with a clean hull,” was all Cocklin said.

  Edward stared at the man, incredulous. A West India voyage, and he thinks his hull is no more foul with weed and barnacle than French privateers who’ve been on short runs in cold waters?

  Soon the hulls of the two southern ships, now under full sail, could be seen from the deck. Cocklin set their courses by the compass. Both stood to the Virginia’s forefoot, on a course to intercept the galley-frigate. Before long it was obvious that the Virginia would outsail one of the southern privateers, but the swifter kept on the same bearing and slowly closed the distance. Not only was the Virginia on her best point of sail going large, but the privateer was probably off of hers by two points. This left but one conclusion: she would “speak” with the swift galley-frigate before dark. That is, she would soon enough order the Virginia Galley to bring to and be boarded.

  “Look,” Edward said quietly to Cocklin, after fuming for two or more hours, “the slower ship to the south is already bearing to our wake and the ship to the north stands to our windward quarter under as much sail as she’ll bear. Soon we’ll have one ship on each quarter and one in our wake, or worse, one on our bow. You must lighten the ship!”

  “With her trim right she’ll outsail anything, by and large—on a bowling or quartering.”

  “And how is her trim?” Edward asked sharply.

  Cocklin refused to reply.

  Damn, thought Edward, she sails two knots off her best when out of trim the bosun said yesterday. We’re going to need every advantage. He must lighten ship!

  He wondered at the captain’s not even setting a water sail on the flagstaff, for the wind was light relative to the time of the year. He wondered at the captain’s not abandoning everything unnecessary to the sea.

  Noting the rising fear and discontent among a few of the crew and passengers, including a former colonel of colonial militia, a former naval officer, and two or three of the planters, Edward slipped into his tiny quarterdeck cabin and armed himself with sword and pistols. He stuffed all of his correspondence, having earlier retrieved it from the captain’s locked chest, beneath his shirt in case he needed to throw it overboard, tucked his perspective glass under his arm, and grabbed his buccaneer gun, un-wedging it from the diagonal stowage necessary for it to fit in the tiny cabin. Back outside he caught some of the crew looking nervously toward him.

  Good, he thought, let them fear me more than the French.

  After another interminable hour, one of the French privateers to the south was but six miles away, still standing to the Virginia’s forefoot. The second of the pair was seven miles away and falling aft. The ship to the north was ten miles away. Although there was no danger of her overhauling the Virginia, she had closed and locked the door of escape in that direction. Cocklin was clearly wrong about the Virginia’s ability to outsail anything, even foul: the privateers, or at least one of them, had the legs of her by almost two knots.

  An hour later, Cocklin ordered a few of the water casks staved and the ensuing water pumped from the hold to lighten ship, worried now that he had waited too long. Edward suggested he cut loose the ship’s boat, which was a drag on the ship’s speed, and so he did, after fuming about the cost to the owners. Edward himself fumed that Cocklin did not do more to lighten the ship, but perhaps he thought it would do little good, or he had greater faith in the Virginia’s speed than was warranted. By now it was clear that the Virginia could not outsail the swiftest predator large, and to set by a wind was too dangerous with an enemy to the north and another to the west. There was an enemy in every direction but one: home.

  Five glasses later—two and a half hours—the chase had turned grim. The swiftest seeker, her lines much like the Virginia’s, had come within four hundred yards, not yet within point blank of her bow chasers, nor yet close to the practical range of her small arms. But soon enough she would be. She hoisted the white French ensign and fired a shotted gun wide of the Virginia, the call for her to strike.

  “Not yet, my hearts!” shouted Cocklin, “We’ve still the heels to run!”

  He did not make his ship clear for engaging. Doubtless he thought this futile, and running his only chance.

  All the usual tactics of the chase—try different points of sail until you discovered the one that worked best against the chase, prolong the chase until nightfall, slip to the opposite tack if the chase was not paying close attention, run the ship ashore—were useless with three ships chasing from three directions.

  Lightened, the Virginia Galley eked out a bit more speed, but the closer privateer still slowly gained, and soon was within the two hundred-fifty yards or so known as musket range. Her companion stood southeast, to keep to the Virginia Galley’s quarter and prevent her from running south. But in the Virginia’s wake would the swift seeker remain, Edward knew, or on one of her quarters, to avoid the Virginia’s own great guns, small and of little worth though they were.

  She carries only ten guns, he thought, and three pounders at that. She could carry eighteen sakers or six pounders, and should, and four smaller guns on the quarterdeck, plus swivels. Why don’t these fools of merchant owners arm their ships as they ought!

  Soon the privateer astern would open fire with small arms. Eventually she would range along the Virginia’s quarter, fire a broadside, slip back into her wake to reload, and then repeat the process. If the Virginia tried to bring her own small broadside to bear, the privateer would be aboard in an instant.

  “She still gains, Captain Cocklin,” Edward said quietly, now raging inside for action, for anything. As a prisoner of the French his hopes for command of a privateer would be destroyed.

  Has Fortune decided to stand against me forever? he wondered. Twice now she has gone against me in this channel between England and Ireland. But no, no, I escaped last time. She presents an opportunity—so seize it!

 
“You must lighten the ship even more—you’ve no other choice,” Edward now coldly insisted to Cocklin. He was half tempted to knock the man in the head and take command himself, but that would be mutiny, a hanging offense.

  The sound of another shotted gun preempted Cocklin’s answer.

  And his life as well, for this was no warning shot, but one well-aimed for the seven hundred foot distance.

  Bits of Cocklin’s brains, jaw bone, and teeth struck Edward in the face and shoulder. At his feet was a headless, twitching body painting the deck scarlet with a rapidly diminishing fountain of blood.

  For a few moments there was silence as the crew, in shock, stood staring. Recovering, one of them shouted, “Strike! Strike!”

  Edward drew one of his long pistols, brought it to full cock, and pointed it at the seaman.

  “Get below, damn you, if you’ve no stomach for the business here! Below, now, or I’ll pistol your brains!”

  Gone in a moment were several seamen, and all of the passengers on deck save four, one of them a stout-bellied old planter who had marched with Morgan on Panama, another a Jewish merchant who had recently borne arms in Jamaica against French incursions. Each had cargo aboard, and by trick of fate were traveling to England. The ship’s cargo was a combination of goods owned and freighted by planters in the Indies, and goods purchased by a factor in the Indies on the behalf of English owners and investors. This latter system of trade was slowly replacing the former. Standing with the planter and merchant were a merchant master who had lost his ship and a former army officer who served occasionally as a volunteer. Otherwise only three seamen and the ship’s boy remained on deck.

  “It’ll be hot here soon,” Edward said to all. “A quarter hour and they’re in small arms range, and they’ll ply them well. Cover your commander with a tarpaulin, then overboard with the spare spars and all of the sweeps, they’re useless to us. Over with them, now! The boat amidships, too, then the anchors, all but the kedge! Fetch some hands up from below if any are brave enough; the French aren’t yet in small arms range!”

  Edward had assumed command, and no one opposed him. About half the crew and passengers heeded his orders, while the rest hid below in fear, or in the cowed pragmatism that proclaims that it is always better to choose the surety of life, no matter the conditions, than risk one’s life for something better, including freedom.

  He ordered each man to his quarters.

  By the time the dutiful among crew and passengers had done all he had ordered, the privateer was within musket range. Long, narrow puffs of smoke shredded by the wind began popping from her deck, foretop, and foreyard, followed by sharp striking sounds of musket balls punching into planks, masts, and timbers, or ricocheting off them and rattling among the yards. The privateer had stopping shooting its chase guns, probably out of concern for the bit of speed lost each time the guns fired. Even so, three of the half dozen fired rounds had passed through stern cabin and steerage, sending many of the crew and passengers to hide in the hold.

  “A steady hand at the helm, squat down, keep low!” Edward ordered as balls passed nearby. He was glad of the high transom and the adjacent small cabins, for they gave extra cover and concealment—otherwise they would likely have been killed already. He grabbed one seaman, suddenly retreating below, by the collar. “Cut up all but one of the anchor cables, pass them up to the forecastle, and toss them out a gunport!” he ordered. Better those men below were at least of some use.

  “Shouldn’t we fight rather than run?” asked the former army officer and occasional volunteer. Like many soldiers, he had far less fear of fighting than of drowning in the sea.

  “We can’t fight, as much as I wish we could,” Edward replied. “They overmatch us at least sevenfold in arms and men. Had we more men and guns, I’d cross his path suddenly and rake him bow to stern, but as close as they are we would never escape, no matter the damage we might do, and they’d be on us in an instant. We might fight seventy or more boarders from stout closed quarters, but this ship lacks them, and we don’t have time to fix them up properly. The French would hack through our decks in a trice and flush us with grenades and firepots.”

  “The ship leans much: won’t it run under the sea?”

  “Nay,” Edward replied with a friendly laugh at the landman’s concern, “this ship is a swimmer, not a sinker. She’ll heel even more if the wind grows. Think of her as a race horse stretching her neck forward the swifter she runs.”

  A moment later the merchant master’s arm was shattered by a musket ball and he was carried below by two stout foremast-men who promptly returned to deck. The occasional volunteer refused to help carry him below for fear Edward might think he were running away to hide.

  Now but seven men remained on deck.

  No, eight, the lookout is still aloft, using the topmast to shield himself. Good man! thought Edward.

  The Virginia sailed a little faster now, but the privateer still gained, if more slowly.

  Damn, if only she weren’t yet in range! fumed Edward.

  The wind grew a bit, and Edward feared it might carry the topgallants by board, perhaps even a topmast, or spring the main. The deck had grown so hot from the fire of more than a hundred French musketeers that soon none would be safe on the open decks. The shot buzzed like a swarm of bees and hammered like a hundred carpenters.

  We here on the quarterdeck will all soon be dead if something doesn’t change, thought Edward.

  His gut was in a knot. Part of him wanted to squat under cover, wanted to retreat out of the path of the hot musket balls. But if he went, so would the helmsmen, and then the rest. He must stay, and stand as much as he could, and he would.

  A musket ball passed through the skirt of Edward’s coat, barely missing his left leg. As a seaman might put it, his ass puckered so tight he couldn’t have shit anything, even if he wanted to.

  Damn!

  He rubbed his wet palms on his coat, and they came up sticky with Cocklin’s blood. He wiped them on the gunwale.

  Three more seamen came on deck, encouraged by the example of others. But two were soon shot down, one of them killed, and no more came up from below. One of the seamen on deck dragged the headless body of the captain and that of the dead seaman to the bulwark and heaved them overboard.

  “Dead weight,” he said with a shrug, a wink, and smile.

  Soon one of the two helmsmen went down, wounded. Another took his place nervously.

  “Keep low,” Edward ordered, “steer with the relieving tackles!”

  “Some say you would sail a ship out of hell!” the new helmsman shouted at Edward. “But this is as close to hell as I want to get! Can you do it, Captain MacNaughton, can you sail a ship while the devil has his teeth in your arse and his nasty yard out and ready to bugger you?”

  “If you stay at the helm, then by Fortune and my Ferrara we’ll sever Satan’s cold cock and sail right through the gates of hell!” he shouted back. Edward wasn’t sure if the man were terrified, sarcastic, or serious. Or all three. “Do you have a short tiller in the great cabin for emergency?”

  “Nay!” came the reply.

  “Then we must steer on deck, and be damned!”

  Edward desperately wished to fight the privateer chasing them, but half of the crew and passengers would not, and those who remained were too few. The Virginia’s commander and owners had relied too much on her speed. She had a pair of chase ports beneath the stern lights in the great cabin, but the shot flew so thick at the stern that none dared open them.

  The guns, Edward thought, we might as well heave them overboard too, and so he gave the order to abandon all but two in the steerage. Two seaman armed with iron crows, handspikes, and a jack, and doing their best to keep under cover, bravely went from port to port, back and forth from larboard to starboard, and soon sent eight three pounders into the Deep.

  “Sir!” Edward shouted down the ladder to the Jamaica planter just below, where he and the merchant worked one of the elm tree p
umps, drawing the last of the staved water from the bilges. It was exhausting work and both men looked ready to collapse. “Find the feckless gunner, get his keys, and fetch the rest of the arms from the locker! We may need them if they try to board! And tell the crew below that they must work the ship or fight, that anyone hurt will receive a gratuity as smart-money out of the owners’ pockets.”

  The planter waved his hand and went below. By now the wind, although it had not veered, had picked up significantly.

  “T’gans’ls!” shouted one of the helmsmen. “The wind will carry away the t’gallant masts soon!”

  “It’s the devil’s wind and it does my bidding!” Edward shouted back. “I’ll put her gunwale in the water before I take in any canvas!”

  And the Virginia gunwale was indeed flirting with the sea. Nor did the French privateer take in any canvas.

  The report of a pistol came from the waist, then another. The planter and two seamen surged retreating up the ladder from the steerage.

  “Mutiny!” the planter shouted, “They intend to give up the ship!”

  Edward drew sword and pistol, cocking the latter against his wrist. Up the ladder from the steerage rushed the colonel of militia armed with an old mortuary sword, its point catching at the rear of the hatch. Bunched behind him were others, number unknown.

  As the colonel paused to release his sword, the planter struck him in the head with the butt of a pistol, knocking him down the ladder. Edward rushed to the quarterdeck rail, a pair of French musket balls passing through the skirt and a sleeve of his coat as he vaulted to the main-deck, just missing the capstan. His bad foot and leg gave way as he landed.

  “Shit!” he cursed as he stood up and rushed into the open steerage, the planter, merchant, former army officer, and two loyal seamen with him.

  Here the fight dissolved as quickly as it had started. There were but five actual mutineers, three of them passengers, two of them crew. The colonel of militia lay unconscious on the deck. His companions, now only passively mutinous, stood hangdog in the open steerage except for one argumentative fellow.