Chapter 316 The Great Royal Blue Balls

"Deeeck, ahoy!"

The cry came raking down from the masthead, cracked and raw. "Masts, sor! Masts, I tell ye! Thick as a hedge over the reef they are, and every last one flyin’ the King’s colors!"

Whitlock entered it on his slate and underlined it twice.

"Sworn at last, Captain. I shall enter the fleet in ink."

Out on the great blue expanse of the Tongue of the Ocean, with the whole Atlantic behind them, the Fortune and the Mistake sailed side by side toward the largest collection of ships in these waters, the Lemon a cable behind.

A man o’ war blocked the entrance to the reefs, big as a castle and pointed into the wind, with a broad pennant flying from her mainmast. A frigate stood on either side of her, several sloops tucked between them, while transports and supply ships crowded behind the lot, right up to the white line of surf.

Boats moved across the shallows toward an encampment on the shore, where redcoats were cutting a path toward the pines. They intended to burn a town at the end of it, but three of their sloops sailed up a channel that dawn and never returned, and every soldier aboard those ships could see the trouble plain enough.

The glare off the water stung every pirate’s eyes.

Then a bell rang aboard the nearest frigate, its sound crossing the mile of water between them, thin and late.

Bonnet held the wheel with two fingers and bowed from the waist to the entire fleet. "Oh, do listen, Whitlock. A bell! For us! I am quite overcome, pray remind me to send a card of thanks."

Then every bell in the fleet joined in. Drums thundered on the decks and the sand, pipes shrilled, and redcoats poured out of the hatches like ants from a disturbed hill, a thousand of them rushing to their guns.

The cannons were cast loose, and the ports flew open all along the blockade, one black square after another, until the man o’ war had a hundred eyes staring at them.

On shore, the redcoats fell into formation with their coats half buttoned, and some hapless cook’s fire went out beneath a boot.

Mary leaned her whole weight on the rail, hawked, and spat over the side. "Would ye look at that now, the whole King’s navy ringin’ its bells and bangin’ its drums for the three of us. Sure I’m that flattered, blushin’ to me boots, God love ’em."

She strolled down the deck, a flat palm an inch above each primed gun.

Across the strip of sea a fist went up on the Mistake’s quarterdeck, and Tom’s hail came down the wind as flat and unbothered. "Fortune, ahoy! They’ve the reefs at their backs, and we’ve the wind in our fists! That be all there be to it, that be all!"

From the Lemon, Gil’s voice washed across the water.

"Eeh, I’ve allus said it. I’ve allus said it, an’ no one listens!"

Then he wheeled on his deck, coat flapping, and bellowed with thunder. "Man them braces, ye idle, slack-jawed slugs! Topmen aloft, an’ sharpish, afore I come up there an’ do it meself, an’ tha’ll not like it, I promise thee that!"

On the nearest frigate, the topsails dropped from their yards and filled with a boom.

The King’s ships came out in a rush, their anchors coming up or their cables being slipped as the frigates and sloops swung around and clawed their way out against the wind in long tacks, yards crashing across and canvas thundering as they came about.

The man o’ war was the size of a hillside and just as slow to get moving. Her capstan bars were still manned, and her topsails were being loosed one at a time, hanging and flapping.

Bonnet called down the deck. "Mark, my dear, the audience is seated, the curtain is up, and I do believe the ladies may now be permitted to speak."

Across the deck, Mary rounded on the gun captain and cracked the flat of her hand against his breeches, then roared in his face from a hand’s breadth away.

"Fire as she bears, or by Christ I’ll load you in her!"

The gun captain looked ready to weep as the Fortune swung her black broadside toward the fleet and her guns spoke. First came the smoke, flat and white, then the thump washed over the water.

The frigates answered, bow gun after bow gun, shot after shot striking the sea well short of the pirates, until the water ahead of them rose in white pillars.

Bonnet cupped a hand to his mouth. "Captain Tom! Captain Gil! Gentlemen, I do beg you, haul your wind, if you would be so very good! And Gil, dear fellow, do try to look a little less in mourning, you’ll put the ships off!"

"Aye aye, sir! Hauled she be!"

Bonnet eased the helm over with two fingers, gently, and turned to his deck with a smile of apology. "Brace up the yards, gentlemen, if you’d be so kind. A touch more, I think, a touch more. Oh, beautifully done. And belay, thank you. Thank you ever so much."

The black ship leaned until her lee rail kissed the water as topmen ran out along the yards and the sheets were hauled flat. The Fortune turned her tail on the whole navy and climbed into the wind, her hull answering the order without hesitation.

The Mistake swung around behind her as neatly as a ship in a drill.

The Lemon came about sharp as a knife, every sheet trimmed to the inch, while Gil swore the sea would have her by Michaelmas.

The sloops came out ahead like terriers chasing a cart, the frigates followed like uncles, and the man o’ war lagged far behind, still struggling with her topsails.

Up in the crosstrees the lookout hung on and shrieked over the wind.

"Big one’s loosed her last sail, sir!"

The Fortune clewed up her topgallants to keep beside the Mistake, slowing down. Then a gun boomed from the man o’ war, and flags climbed her mizzen.

Whitlock entered them on his slate with the same attention he might have given a stranger’s accounts. "Red over yellow, Captain. An order to return to anchor, I take it, chiefly because they are returning to anchor, which I find the most reliable method of translation."

The Royal Navy frigates and sloops came about and ran back before the wind. The bells rang again before the spray had dried, and this time the Mistake led the way, swinging down on the navy in her old rigging as though she had invented the drill herself.

The bells were thinner now.

On shore, the redcoats fell into formation with their coats half buttoned, their cook fire kicked out for a second time. The frigates came out more slowly, and the man o’ war slower still, until the Fortune guns thundered over the waters.

The Mistake clawed away to windward with the Fortune beside her, and the Royal Navy was recalled back to its blockade.

The third time to edge the King’s ships, it was the Lemon’s turn to lead. The sloop swung at the wall of ships like a swallow, then clawed away without losing a yard.

The redcoats sent only their sloops this time, calling them back before they had even sheeted home their topsails. The breeze strengthened by a point, and the swell rose long and green, lifting every bow.

By then, the Fortune’s crew had become thoroughly rude. They bowed to the man o’ war, and a pirate turned his arse and dropped his breeches.

"Put it away, ye great pale moon o’ a man!"

The fourth time, they hove to, the three pirate ships lay in plain sight just beyond gunshot, their black flags flying. The bells rang, the drums rolled, the ports flew open, the guns ran out with a roar, and the camp fell into formation on the sand, yet not a single anchor came up.

Then the bells stopped, and silence reigned over the water, broken only by the sea slapping against the hulls.

Bonnet studied the motionless ships, looking as disappointed as a gentleman whose invitation had been declined. "How very curious. Three calls, Whitlock, in our very best manners, at an excellent hour, and not a soul will come down to the door. Be so good as to hoist the blue, my dear fellow."

A plain blue flag went up the halyard. The Lemon’s answer went up before it had even reached the top, straight as a plumb line, and Gil moaned behind it.

The Mistake’s flag leapt up in the same breath.

Whitlock chalked both answers side by side, then tapped the second with the end of his chalk.

"Both acknowledged, Captain."

Bonnet, who had steered this ship with two fingers, took the wheel in both hands. "Sheet home, gentlemen, if you would be so very kind. All of it. Every thread we own, and if the Almighty can spare a little more, we shall borrow that, too."

Courses, topsails, and topgallants dropped and filled with the wind, and the Fortune leaned and leapt like a horse at a gate.

Crick rapped the taffrail three times. "The widow be left behind, Cap’n, an’ no mistake. Let her stand astern and wring her hands at the navy, and good luck to her, say I."

Ahead, the black ship sailed toward the wall alone, her canvas booming, the sea roaring beneath her bow, every gun in the King’s line run out and waiting.