Chapter 36: Mad Plans, Worse Odds
The sloops fired at almost the same moment.
The noise hit James as a single violent crash, wider and heavier than any lone cannonball. It seemed to swallow the sea itself for an instant, a wall of thunder rolling across the water from two ships barely separated by a few dozen yards. A heartbeat later came the hiss and crack of iron tearing through timber, canvas, rope, and flesh all at once.
Part of the rail beside him exploded outward.
The impact burst through oak like an axe through rotten wood. Splinters flew in every direction, and many slashed across his knuckles where they gripped the wheel, while another cut a hot wound along one cheek. Blood welled up as broken wood showered the deck and rattled across the planks. Where the rail had been stood only jagged stumps and splintered ruin.
James never loosened his grip on the wheel.
All around him the broadside’s work revealed itself.
Two men near the mainmast went down in the same instant.
One disappeared behind a burst of splintered timber. The other hit the deck hard enough to bounce, blood already spreading beneath him before he’d stopped rolling.
Four more collapsed where they stood. One screamed until he ran out of breath. Another simply folded and dropped without a sound. A third clutched at his stomach with both hands as blood poured between his fingers.
Seven more were luckier.
Luckier did not mean unharmed.
They bled, cursed, and staggered through the smoke with torn sleeves, shredded coats, and fresh blood running down their arms and faces. One man had a strip of scalp hanging loose above an eye. Another limped back toward his station with a splinter buried in his shoulder.
None of them stopped moving.
Smoke drifted low across the deck, thick enough to taste.
The sharp stink of powder clung to the air. Beneath it came the metallic scent of fresh blood and the smell of shattered timber. The sea breeze tried to carry it away and failed. Every gust merely pushed the haze from one side of the deck to the other.
Mackerel Jim stumbled into the rail with blood streaming down one forearm.
Somehow, he was already grinning.
"I took worse off a drunk fishwife in Curaçao!" he bellowed. "This is nothin’!"
Nobody believed him.
Nobody had enough breath left to argue.
Near the foremast, Silas Hollis dropped to one knee, clutching at a graze along his ribs while blood from somewhere nearby soaked across his shirt.
"Ezra! Ezra, I’ve been hit!"
"Ye’re nae hit, that’s my shirt ye’re bleedin’ on, ye thievin’ bastard!"
"Then whose blood is this?"
"How in God’s name should I know whose blood that is!"
Greasy Pete discovered a piece of shot had punched clean through both his coats.
The iron had left two ragged holes large enough to fit a fist through.
He stared at them in disbelief, running his fingers around the torn fabric as though unable to understand why he was still standing.
"Two good coats!" he roared. "Two! Somebody’s payin’ for this, Spanish or otherwise!"
James didn’t have time to laugh.
Still, he tucked the moment away. If he survived the night, he’d laugh about it later.
Voices crashed together across the deck.
English curses mixed with shouts in languages James didn’t recognize. Someone called a name once. Then again. Then a third time, each shout sharper than the last. Men stumbled through drifting smoke searching for shipmates they could barely see. Somewhere below, a wounded sailor screamed. The sound rose through an open hatch before vanishing beneath the chaos.
Near the hatch, Hobbs hurried through the confusion with his medical bag bouncing against one shoulder.
He was already cursing the dead for getting in his way before he’d reached the wounded.
"Hold him down, or hold yer tongue," Hobbs snapped. "I can’t work with both flappin’ at once!"
"On yer feet!" James bellowed.
His voice cut through the noise from one end of the ship to the other.
"Gunners to your pieces, NOW! We’re not done, and neither are you!"
Cudjoe had a sailor by the collar before James even finished speaking.
He hauled the man upright and shoved him toward the nearest cannon. "You, there! On the tackle! The rest of ye bleed standin’ up or dinnae bleed at all, I dinnae care which, just MOVE!"
The crew answered.
Men got back to their feet. Others dragged themselves there. Gun crews re-formed around their pieces. Powder monkeys emerged from cover carrying cartridges. Sailors seized lines and tackle.
In moments the Rose stopped feeling like a slaughterhouse and started feeling like a warship again.
La Trinidad lay alongside them now, close enough to spit across the gap.
Smoke drifted between the ships in torn grey sheets. Through it James could see the Spanish vessel’s broad flank stretching open from bow to stern. Her shattered foremast dragged through the water beside her like a crippled limb she could not free. Every swell pulled at the wreckage and sent sprays of white water bursting around the broken spars.
She had closed in expecting to finish the fight.
She had forgotten what that distance would cost.
"Farrow!"
James never took his eyes off her. "Starboard battery! Rake her stem to stern, every gun ye’ve got, NOW!"
"Aye, Captain!"
James could hear the excitement in Farrow’s voice.
"Fire as she bears!"
Nine cannons discharged so close together they felt like one rolling blast of thunder.
The entire deck jumped beneath James’s boots.
Flame erupted from the gunports in a line of orange-white flashes. The recoil drove the cannons backward on their trucks while fresh smoke burst outward and swallowed half the ship.
At this range the shot tore the length of La Trinidad in a single pass.
Bow to stern.
James saw splinters explode from her hull in great clouds. Sections of rail vanished. Men disappeared. Gunport lids shattered inward. More destruction in one instant than either ship had managed through most of the battle.
La Trinidad lurched with the swell.
For a moment she looked like something beneath the sea had seized hold of her and twisted.
Smoke poured from open hatches. Her bow dipped beneath the waves before rising again at an ugly angle. Water spilled across the forecastle. Even from here James could see the damage of it.
Sailors rushed toward the stern, fleeing whatever disaster had erupted below decks.
There was nowhere left to run that wasn’t sinking with the ship.
"That’s done it."
Cudjoe watched through the smoke.
"She’s goin’ down. Slow, but she’s goin’."
San Diego was still in the fight.
The Spanish ship swung wide through the haze, trying to bring her guns around before the Rose could recover from the last exchange. Her remaining sails bellied with wind as she clawed for position.
James refused to give her the chance.
He hauled the wheel over hard.
The spokes bit into his palms as the Rose answered beneath him. The bow swung toward the Spanish ship. Timbers groaned throughout the hull.
Across the water, sailors fixing San Diego’s rail stared in confusion.
Then realization spread through them as the distance vanished.
Men pointed.
Others shouted.
By the time they understood what was coming, it was already too late.
"All hands, make sail!"
James roared. "Every line, every scrap of canvas we’ve got, NOW! We’re goin’ through her!"
Cudjoe stared at him.
For exactly one second.
The expression on his face was a familiar one. He wondered if his captain went mad.
"Ye want tae run us straight intae her."
"That’s the plan."
Cudjoe shook his head.
Then he turned and began shouting before the movement was finished.
"Haul away, ye useless bastards, the captain’s gone and lost what little sense he had left!"
"Christ, he’s gonnae hit her dead center!" someone yelled from the rigging, equally horrified and delighted.
Canvas dropped.
Sail after sail unfurled overhead.
Wind seized them at once.
The Rose heeled hard as fresh speed surged through her hull. Rigging groaned. Blocks rattled. White water ripped along her sides as the bow drove forward. Every timber in the ship seemed to complain at once under the strain.
The distance between the ships shrank rapidly.
Then faster still.
San Diego grew larger with every heartbeat until James could make out individual faces in the deck.
There was no command left aboard that could stop the Rose now.
