Pirate Latitudes

The real question was when to open fire. Hunter had no illusions about the strength of this cannon. A five-pound shot was hardly formidable; it would take many rounds to cause significant damage. But if he opened fire at night, the Spanish warship might, in confusion, cast off and try to move out of range. And in shoal water at night, she could easily run aground or even sink.

That was what he hoped for.

The saker, lying in the wallowing longboat, reached the shore, and thirty seamen groaned to haul it onto the beach. There it was placed on rollers, and laboriously dragged, foot by foot, to the edge of the underbrush.

From there, the saker had to be pulled a hundred feet up to the top of the hill, through dense clusters of mangrove and palm trees. Without winches or tackles to help with the weight, it was a forbidding job, yet his crew bent to the task with alacrity.

Other men worked equally hard. The Jew supervised five men who scrubbed the rust from the iron shot, and filled shot-bags with gunpowder. The Moor, a skilled carpenter, built a gun carriage with trunnion notches.

By dusk, the gun was in position, overlooking the warship. Hunter waited until a few minutes before darkness closed in, and then he gave the order to fire. The first round was long, splashing on the seaward side of the Spanish vessel. The second round hit its mark, and so did the third. And then it became almost too dark to see anything.

For the next hour, the saker slammed shot into the Spanish warship and in the gloom they saw white sails unfurl.

“He’s going to run for it!” Enders shouted hoarsely.

There were cheers from the gun crew. More volleys were fired as the warship backed and filled, easing away from the mooring. Hunter’s men kept up a steady pattern of shots, and even when the warship was no longer visible in the darkness, he gave orders to carry on firing. The crack of the saker continued through the night.

By the first light of dawn, they strained to see the fruits of their labors. The warship was again anchored, perhaps a quarter-mile farther offshore, but the sun rose behind the vessel, making her a black silhouette. They could see no evidence of damage. They knew they had caused some, but it was impossible to judge the extent.

Even in the first moments of light, Hunter was depressed. He could tell from the way the ship rode at anchor that she had not been seriously injured. With great good fortune, she had maneuvered the night waters outside the bay without striking coral or running aground.

One of her topsail spars hung cracked and dangling. Some of her rigging was ragged, and her bowline was chipped and splintered. But these were minor details: Bosquet’s warship was safe, riding smoothly in the sunlit waters offshore. Hunter felt enormous fatigue and enormous depression. He watched the ship some moments longer, noticing her motion.

“God’s blood,” he said softly.

Enders, by his side, had noticed it, too. “Longish chop,” he said.

“The wind is fair,” Hunter said.

“Aye. For another day or so.”

Hunter stared at the long, slow sea swell that rocked the Spanish warship back and forth at anchor. He swore. “Where is it from?”

“I’d guess,” Enders said, “that it’s straight up from the south, this time of year.”

In the late summer months, they all knew to expect hurricanes. And as consummate sailors, they were able to predict the arrival of these frightful storms as much as two days in advance. The early warnings were always found in the ocean surface: the waves, pressed forward by storm winds of a hundred miles an hour, were altered in places far distant.

Hunter looked at the still-cloudless sky. “How much time, do you reckon?”

Enders shook his head. “It will be tomorrow night at the latest.”

“Damn!” Hunter said. He turned and looked back at the galleon in Monkey Bay. She rode easily at anchor. The tide was in, and it was abnormally high. “Damn!” he said again, and returned to his ship.

He was in a foul mood, pacing the decks of his ship under the hot midday sun, pacing like a man trapped in a dungeon cell. He was not inclined to polite conversation, and it was unfortunate that Lady Sarah Almont chose this moment to speak with him. She requested a longboat and crew to take her ashore.

“To what end?” he said curtly. In the back of his mind, he wondered that she had made no mention whether he had visited her cabin the night previous.

“What end? Why to gather fruits and vegetables for my diet. You have nothing adequate on board.”

“Your request is quite impossible,” he said, and turned away from her.

“Captain,” she said, stamping her foot, “I shall have you know that this is no mean matter to me. I am a vegetarian, and eat no meat.”

He turned back. “Madam,” he said, “I care not a whit for your eccentric fancies, and have neither the time nor the patience to oblige them.”