Chapter 215: Cuba’s Reply

The coast thickened through the morning, green scrub and pale sand climbing out of the haze. Only hours before, there had been nothing but a dark smear off the bow.

Then, rising exactly where memory said they would, came the two shadows across the shore.

El Morro in the eastern shoulder of the bay, squat, pale, and older than the sailors staring at her now. La Punta from across the passage, close enough that a strong arm might almost throw a rock between them.

Between the two lay the whole reason Havana had bothered building walls in the first place. The channel entrance was narrow enough that a good spyglass could count every ship trying to slip through it.

James kept the Rose short of it, and the fleet short behind her.

Two leagues lay between his bow and the bay, near six miles by reasonable reckoning. It was close enough for a spyglass to pick out the fort’s stonework, but far enough that nothing behind either wall could throw iron near enough to touch him.

Beyond the forts, the city crowded the shore with red tile and bell towers. Past that stood a forest of masts riding easy at dock, with not a soul aboard seeming to have the faintest notion what was sitting outside their own front door.

James gave the order and watched seven captains do the one thing they rarely managed on the first try.

Exactly what they had already agreed to.

The Grand Dame came about first, her hull swinging wide and easy, Don Rodrigo’s hand steady on the wheel as he brought her square across the main channel.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge eased in a cable’s length off her. Two mastodons now stood shoulder to shoulder across the one door no merchant bound for Havana could avoid without wings.

Between them sat better than a hundred guns.

The fleet spread wide, exactly as James had drawn with a wet finger and a borrowed chart.

Bonnet took the Black Fortune south near the coast. Bellamy ranged the Marianne farther out, quick enough to run down anything hugging the shallows.

Howard kept the old Revenge to the north, while Vane took the Ranger wider still, his laugh carrying clean across the water before the wind stole the rest of it.

The Rose stood in the gap between the two halves, close enough to reach either flank within the hour if trouble found one side harder pressed than the other.

An anvil planted square in the one door Havana could not shut, with a hammer spread wide enough to catch anything foolish enough to try the walls instead.

Below the quarterdeck, the Rose had already begun to turn herself into the war machine she really was beneath all that claret canvas.

Farrow moved down his guns like a father checking children he didn’t trust to behave themselves the moment his back was turned. Breeching ropes were checked twice, quoins were knocked square beneath barrels already wormed and sponged clean of whatever the voyage had left inside them.

He stopped at the sixth gun longer than the rest, one hand flat against her barrel as though he meant to feel for a fever.

"Behave yerself today."

Low, the way a man threatens a horse he’s fond of and ashamed to be fond of. "Ye’ve took two men’s fingers and one man’s temper already this year. I’ll not have ye takin’ a third before we’ve so much as fired a shot in anger."

Kit then swung down off the ratlines with reckless ease. "Talkin’ tae the cannon again, Farrow?"

"She talks plenty, ye’re just never listenin’."

The boy had his own glass up a moment later.

"Would ye look at the size of her."

He said, meaning the fort rather than anything sensible.

"That’s the Conqueror of Havana’s personal doorstep, that is. I’m plannin’ on knockin’."

Pete snorted while hauling some powder.

"Ye’re plannin’ on gettin’ yer fool head blown clean off yer shoulders."

Doyle hauled a cask past both of them.

"Heard tell some lunatic on the Dame’s callin’ himself the Terror of El Morro now."

"Might want to sort out who’s terrorizin’ who before we get there, lads."

Kit snickered with impatience.

"He can have El Morro. I’m after the whole bloody city."

Farrow couldn’t care less about their ruckus. "Hell, ye can conquer the whole of New Spain for all I care, lad, so long as ye’re standin’ behind a gun when the shootin’ starts."

Faint across the water, carried off the Grand Dame’s rigging, another voice went up bellowing about being the Terror of El Morro to anyone still fool enough to believe him.

Half the Rose’s deck came apart laughing loud enough that Farrow had to shout twice before his powder monkeys started to work again.

James let it run.

The morning burned into full afternoon, and the fleet held its position.

Sailors ate standing at their stations instead of sitting down proper, Enzo’s new dish of broken ship’s biscuit fried in pork fat with bits of meat and pepper passing hand to hand along the gun deck.

There was not a soul aboard fool enough to mistake it for calm.

It came a little past midday’s crest, once the light had gone flat and white over the water and most men had stopped watching the fort at all.

A thread of smoke climbed first, thin and pale against the sky behind El Morro’s walls.

Then came the gun, flat and distant. The crack took a long moment to cross the open water before it reached the Rose.

A second followed.

Then a third, each shot spaced as evenly as a man counting aloud.

Bells started up from somewhere inland a breath later, faint at this distance but unmistakable now that every man aboard had reason to listen for them.

James kept his spyglass on the bay.

Havana had noticed them.

That much was certain now, whatever came next.

The activity started small and didn’t stay that way for long.

Boats crossed the harbor behind the two forts, more appearing by the minute, each with hurry.

Smoke thickened over the rooftops beyond the walls, harder than any ordinary afternoon called for.

James went below and came back up satisfied.

Every gun on the Rose that could be loaded already was, powder dry, shot stacked, matches burning slow beneath canvas against the wind.

He had expected no less from Farrow, but a captain checked regardless.

The gap between the two forts had sat empty all morning, save for the ordinary fishing boats too small to matter.

Then it stopped being empty.

Canvas broke first, one pale scrap climbing a mast behind La Punta’s wall.

Within a minute came a second, then a third close behind it.

More followed, faster now.

Ship after ship sailed of the harbor and spread into open water on the far side, sails climbing yard by yard.

James brought his spyglass up and held it there.

He counted the debts one by one, patient and grim as the number climbed past anywhere comfortable.

Six.

Nine.

Eleven.

Sixteen ships had sailed from the docks.

Behind them came a scatter of smaller boats he didn’t bother numbering, harbor hulls too small to carry real guns. They were plenty large enough to carry sailors who would die regardless if it came to boarding action.

Under the grin he still hadn’t let go of, James did the only honest math left to a man in his position.

Whatever met them past that bay, good men were bound to die today on both sides of it, Spanish and pirate alike. No plan drawn on any chart was clever enough to change that.

He kept the glass raised and watched Havana’s reply, one more hull at a time.