Pirate Latitudes

An efficient gun crew, a crew capable of loading, running out, aiming, and firing a cannon once a minute during battle consisted of fifteen men, not including the gun captain. To allow for injury, and simple fatigue during battle - the men grew tired pushing around two and a half tons of hot bronze - the crews were usually seventeen to twenty men. Assuming only half the cannon were fired at one time, Hunter really needed more than two hundred and seventy men just to work his guns. Yet he had none to spare. He was already shorthanded topside with his canvas.

The hard facts Hunter faced were these: he commanded a crew one-tenth the size he would need to fight well in a sea engagement, and one-third the size he would need to survive a heavy storm. The implication was clear enough - run from a fight, and find shelter before a storm.

It was Enders who voiced the concern. “I wish we could run out full canvas,” he said. He looked aloft. Right now, El Trinidad sailed without mizzens, spritsails, or topgallants.

“What’re we making?” Hunter asked.

“No better than eight knots. We should be doing double that.”

“Not easy to outrun a ship,” Hunter said.

“Or a storm,” Enders said. “You thinking of scuttling the sloop?”

Hunter had considered it already. The ten men aboard the Cassandra would help on the larger ship, but not much; El Trinidad would still be sorely undermanned. Furthermore, the sloop was valuable in itself. If he kept his own boat, he could auction the Spanish galleon to the merchants and captains of Port Royal, where it would fetch a considerable sum. Or else it would be included in the king’s tenth, and greatly reduce the amount of bullion or other treasure that King Charles would take.

“No,” he said finally. “I want to keep my ship.”

“Well, we could lighten the sow,” Enders said. “There’s plenty of deadweight aboard. You’ve no use for the bronze, or the longboats.”

“I know,” Hunter said. “But I hate to see us defenseless.”

“But we are defenseless,” Enders said.

“I know it,” Hunter said. “But for the moment we will take our risks, and trust to Providence that we will have a safe return. Chance is on our side, especially once we are in the southern seas.” It was Hunter’s plan to sail down the Lesser Antilles, and then west, into the vastness of the Caribbean between Venezuela and Santo Domingo. He would be unlikely to meet Spanish warships in so much open water.

“I’m not one for trusting to Providence,” Enders said gloomily. “But so be it.”

…

LADY SARAH ALMONT was in an aft cabin. Hunter found her in the company of Lazue, who, with an air of elaborate innocence, was helping the girl comb her hair.

Hunter asked Lazue to leave, and she did.

“But we were having such a pleasant time!” Lady Sarah protested, as the door closed.

“Madam, I fear that Lazue has designs upon you.”

“He seemed such a gentle man,” she said. “He had a most delicate touch.”

“Well,” Hunter said, taking a seat in the cabin, “things are not always as they seem.”

“Indeed, I have long since discovered that,” she replied. “I was on board the merchantman Entrepid, commanded by Captain Timothy Warner, of whom His Majesty King Charles has a most high opinion, as a fighting man. Imagine my surprise to discover that Captain Warner’s knees shook more vigorously than my own, when confronted by the Spanish warship. He was, in brief, a coward.”

“What happened to the ship?”

“It was destroyed.”

“Cazalla?”

“Yes, the same. I was taken as prize. The crew and the ship were fired upon and sunk by Cazalla.”

“All killed?” Hunter asked, raising his eyebrows. He was not really surprised, but this incident gave him the provocation that Sir James would sorely need to justify the attack on Matanceros.

“I did not witness it,” said Lady Sarah. “But I presume so. I was locked in a cabin. Then Cazalla captured another ship of Englishmen. What befell them, I do not know.”

“I believe,” Hunter said, with a slight bow, “that they made good their escape.”

“Perhaps so,” she said, with no sign of understanding Hunter’s meaning. “And now? What will you vagabonds have with me? I presume I am in the clutches of pirates.”

“Charles Hunter, freeborn privateer, at your service. We are making our way to Port Royal.”

She sighed. “This New World is so tedious. I hardly know whom to believe. You will forgive me if I am suspicious of you.”

“Indeed, madam,” said Hunter, feeling irritation at this prickly woman whose life he had saved. “I merely came below to inquire after your ankle-”

“It is improved much, thank you.”

“-and to ask if you are, ah, otherwise well.”

“Ah yes?” Her eyes flashed. “Do you not rather mean, if the Spaniard had his way with me, so that you can freely follow?”

“Madam, I did not-”

“Well, I can assure you, the Spaniard took nothing from me that was not already missing.” She gave a bitter laugh. “But he did it in his fashion.”

Abruptly, she turned in her chair. She wore a dress of Spanish cut - one she found in the ship - and it had a low back. Hunter saw a series of ugly welts across her shoulders.