A Sea Too Far (8 page)

“How many cannons does she carry?” Warren managed to ask as he and Marty prepared to climb into a small launch for the ride to the ship.

“Forty,” Marty answered as he helped lift Conchshell aboard. “The captain doesn’t like to be outgunned.”

The Labrador, caught up in the excitement of the dash to the anchorage, and thrilled to be boarding a ship instead of the tipsy dory, happily barked her approval of the operation.

The two intrepid young pirates scrambled up a wooden ladder, rolled over the side of
Queen Anne’s Revenge,
and tumbled to the wooden deck.

Conchshell was hoisted aboard in a crude basket that was lowered into the launch.

“Don’t worry, lad,” a crew member with flaming red hair and bushy brows the color of a carrot called to Warren. “We not be leaving thy dog on the shore. Me thinks the captain likes the hound. Maybe she brings us good luck.”

“Get aloft,” screamed one of the crew to Marty and Warren. The grizzled sailor, sporting a corncob pipe clenched in his jaw, seemed to carry some authority among the common crew. “Them sails ain’t gonna drop from the yardarms by themselves.”

Warren looked at Marty with alarm. “What does he want us
to do
?”

Marty Read swung his foot into the lowest rung of the hanging rope ladder on the starboard side and began to climb. “Come on,” he said with undisguised delight. “We’re going aloft. We’ve got to unfurl the sails. Ye go up the port side.”

Warren peered into the burning sun pouring down from the unblemished sky. The uppermost horizontal yardarms seemed half a mile high. He swallowed once with difficulty and pasted a mortified smile on his face.

“Stay here, Shelly girl,” he said bravely. “Unless you want to take my place.”

The Labrador barked her contentment to remain on the deck.

Warren stepped up to the port ladder and grabbed two vertical sections of rope with his hands. Instinctively he tested the strange contraption with an exploratory pull. The conveyance up the tall mast seemed strong enough; he wondered about his courage.

“Get moving, lad,” the pipe-smoking sailor said benevolently. “If ye desire to become a proper pirate, ye best start learning thy way around the ship.”

Warren stretched his arms and grabbed the ropes at the height of his reach. With a slight jump, he lifted his weight from the deck, found purchase with his feet, and began a rapid ascent up the ladder. He kept his eyes aloft, concentrating on the next step. Save for trips in an airplane, he had never been so high above the ground. The tuna tower on his father’s sportfishing boat was perhaps half the height.

“That’s right, Warren,” Marty Read called from the neighboring rope ladder. “Don’t look down. It be easier that way.”

The tiny square platform surrounding the mast at the halfway point arrived more quickly than Warren expected. “Now what?” he yelled to Marty. “Do I keep going up?”

“Aye,” the young man yelled back through the breeze. “Get to the top.”

Warren scrambled from the ladder and knelt briefly on the platform. He glanced down to the deck and immediately felt a wave of dizziness sweep through this head. I must
still be feeling the effects of the fall in the dory
,
he thought. I better get some rest as soon as this excitement concludes.

The young man scanned the length of the ship with his eyes. The activity was frantic. The last of the men were already aboard from the beach. The launch was being winched over the starboard side, and pirates stood ready to lash it in place on top of the ventilated main hatch cover.

Both sets of yardarms stretching from the forward mast swarmed with young sailors unlashing leather straps that held sails. Below, three stout sailors were revolving a large drum in the bow by circling it while pushing protruding handles. Heavy line was coiling around the wooden capstan, lifting the anchor from the bottom of the anchorage. Pirates worked feverishly around the deck cannons. Others staggered up ladders from the area below carrying massive cannonballs.

Queen Anne’s Revenge
was preparing to get under way. She would not be venturing forth in a friendly manner.

* * *

Warren inched away from the platform midway up the mast and regained the narrowing ladder. Looking only upward, he scrambled to a second height, similar in length to his initial climb, until he achieved the very top of the rope ladder. Cautiously, he crawled over to the diminutive platform at the zenith of the mast and clasped the thick wooden pole tightly with both arms.

He felt the ship move. Warren peeked down and suddenly realized the ship was actually swaying. His stomach churned and for a moment he thought he might vomit. He concentrated on the men below. They appeared as tiny as ants scurrying around the deck. He searched for his dog. Conchshell was huddled at the base of the mast. Her paws covered her eyes.

“Crawl out the yardarm and remove the straps,” Marty shouted as he poked his head above the last horizontal step on the starboard ladder. “There’s a rope running overhead from the tip of the mast to the end of the yardarm. Use it to steady yourself.”

Warren looked up and saw the line. He fought the nausea roiling in his stomach. “What if I lose hold of the rope and fall?” he yelled to Marty.

“Don’t worry,” Marty Read called back with an enormous grin on his face. “The fall won’t kill ye.”

Warren turned to the young man with a questioning look.

“It be the sudden stop ye need be worrying thyself about.”

~12~
 

Queen Anne’s Revenge
eased from her narrow anchorage on the east side of the Wells and headed into the vast adjacent sound. A wall of large rocks, fifty yards offshore of the deep slough, screened the ship from the easterly trade breezes and shielded the hull from the sight of passing vessels. From the crow’s nest atop the center mast, Blackbeard’s vigilant look-out was able to see over the protective rocks and monitor ship traffic.

The ship’s master, Christopher Oakes, stood behind the huge steering wheel on the third deck in the aft section. His sun burnt right hand rested easily on one of the spokes as he guided the wooden vessel around the last rock.

“Make all sail, Master Oakes,” Captain Edward Teach said calmly. “Me thinks this trader might prove profitable. I be anxious to have a look.”

“Aye, captain,” Master Oakes acknowledged.

Christopher Oakes turned to the pirate who had ordered Warren and Marty aloft. “Launch the twin jibs, Boatswain Bostock,” he commanded. “We want all possible speed.”

“Aye, sir,” the grizzled Bostock said as he stepped to the stout railing in front of the wheel and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Come, lads,” he shouted. “Set those bow jibs. Be smart about it. I want to hear the water hissing off the keel.”

Two enormous black square sails billowed from each of the tall masts, one above the other. Each sinister canvas was suspended from its own yardarm. A fifth square sail hung below the bowsprit, stretched to catch the wind on a separate horizontal boom. The aft mast carried a sixth square sail above a triangular jib.

A distinct pop announced the launch of the forward jibs as they caught the air and snapped taut against their controlling lines.

“Now we’re sailing, lads,” the boatswain shouted to the crew through the pipe clenched tightly in his teeth. “There’s nary a ship afloat can match us for speed, me thinks.”

Marty pulled Warren to the port side of the ship and pointed. “Look,” he said. “Can ye see her? There she be in the distance.”

“I . . . I guess I see a boat.”

“It be easier from above,” Marty said. “After a while thine eyes get more accustomed.”

“What are we doing?” Warren said in a low voice. He didn’t want to appear ignorant in front of the fifty pirates who had scrambled to prepare
Queen Anne’s Revenge
for . . . what?

Marty Read’s expression glowed with anticipation. His eyes shone with eagerness. “We be going to capture that ship,” he said excitedly.

“How are we going to do that?” Warren asked. “And why? They didn’t do anything to us.”

Marty laughed. “Ye be a pirate now,” he said. “That be what pirates do for a living. We rob other ships.”

Warren turned from the side of the ship and looked at Conchshell. The dog had happily welcomed him down from the scary ascent to the top of the mast with yips of relief. The Labrador apparently was pleased to be aboard a stable vessel rather than the tippy dory.

“Are you ready to be a pirate, Shelly girl?” Warren asked with a dubious expression on his face. “I don’t see that we have much choice. It’s Captain Blackbeard’s ship and his crew. We’re just passengers hoping to hitch a ride to Nassau.”

Marty Read placed a sympathetic hand on Warren’s shoulder. “It be a merchant ship we’re after,” the young man said. “This won’t be like taking on a French or Spanish ship of the line. I vouch there won’t be much fighting. I wager Blackbeard will order a loud show of force and hope to scare the crew into surrendering.”

Warren looked around at the pirates on deck. Several were pulling on lines from the lower corners of the black sails, adjusting the trim for maximum speed. Others were inspecting swords and charging pistols with powder in preparation to fire.

“I hope you’re right,” Warren said. “I don’t have anything to fight with.”

“If we board the other ship, stay behind me,” Marty advised. “Ye should be able to pick up a weapon from one of the other crew.”

“Just take somebody else’s sword?”

Marty laughed and slapped Warren on the shoulder. “Now ye be getting the idea.”

Conchshell jumped in a little circle and barked joyously. The electricity of excitement charging through the crew had infected the Labrador.

* * *

Queen Anne’s Revenge
relentlessly closed the distance with the heavily laden merchant ship. Her full complement of sails and skillful handling by her crew pressed the pirate ship through the water a full two knots faster than the pursued vessel could travel.

“Can ye make out the name yet?” Blackbeard asked Master Oakes who was adjusting the focus of the long brass telescope.

“Aye, captain,” Master Oakes replied. “She be a French merchant vessel named
Marseilles
.”

“Raise the pennant, Mr. Bostock,” Blackbeard commanded. “Let these Frenchies know who be breathing hard on their transom.”

Bostock drew a quick puff on his pipe and removed the stem from his teeth. Pointing it aloft, he called down to the main deck. “Up the mast, one of ye lads,” he shouted. “Fly the captain’s flag. Display for these Frenchies their worst nightmare.”

A nimble sailor scrambled up the rope ladder with Blackbeard’s personal burgee. Within seconds the pirate was standing on the uppermost platform, attaching a large rectangular pennant to the flag staff.

The wind immediately caught the black canvas and snapped it straight. The white image of a skeleton appeared. The figure hoisted a drink in his right hand, toasting the devil, while jabbing an arrow at a bright red heart with his left. Drops of blood fell from the piercing to the corner of the canvas.

Blackbeard looked up the mast and smiled at the flag snapping in the wind. In his entire career, first as a privateer for his native Britain during the War of Spanish Succession, when he legally attacked French and Spanish ships under the auspices of the Crown, and later as a pirate, Edward Teach had never harmed a single person who was not threatening his life.

Intimidation was Blackbeard’s first weapon of choice.

“Bring her alongside
Marseilles
, Mr. Oakes,” the captain ordered. “Prepare to fire two salvos at the bow. We’ll see how much fight these Frenchies have in their souls.”

Warren watched the crews of the two forward cannons on the port side load heavy cast iron balls into the weapon and stuff explosive charges into the breach. One pirate stood in readiness behind each cannon with a lighted stick ready to ignite the gunpowder.

The two ships drew closer as
Queen Anne’s Revenge
angled toward the fleeing
Marseilles
. The azure Bahamian waters parted at the bows of the two boats and dashed alongside the wooden hulls in pure, white swaths of foam.

“Luff the jibs, Mr. Oakes,” Blackbeard instructed. “Slow us to
Marseilles’s
speed.”

Warren looked with fascination as sailors adjusted the two triangular forward sails and caused them to flap ineffectually in the wind, reducing the speed of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
.

The two ships gently porpoised through mild swells, holding ultimately intersecting courses, twin travelers on the sea with distinctly disparate purposes.

A man appeared on the after deck of the French merchant ship. He was dressed in a deep blue frock coat with red piping and gold epaulets on the shoulders. He lifted a conical bullhorn and shouted against the rapidly shrinking distance between the two ships.

“Damnation on thy villainous souls,” he shouted through the speaking device. “From whence doth thy come?”

Blackbeard approached the railing on the port side of his ship and raised a similar hailing instrument. “We be from the depths of Hades,” he shouted across the frothing water trapped between the two hulls. “Ye can see by our colors it’s pirates we be, and we mean to have thy cargo and thy life if ye choose to resist.”

“I’ll not strike me colors for the likes of a band of scurvy pirates,” the French captain replied. “Be gone with ye back to thy fiery home with the devil.”

Warren looked at Marty Read with wide eyes. He had heard the bellicose exchange between the two captains of the ships. “I guess that means we’re in for a fight,” he said.

“Aye, friend,” Marty nodded. “Prepare thyself to hold thine ears.”

“Fire number one and two, Mr. Oakes,” Blackbeard said calmly. “Just sufficient to show these Frenchies the devil is in league with Blackbeard. I don’t want that ship on the bottom of the ocean.”

Nearly simultaneous blasts sounded from the forward part of the main deck of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
. Conchshell was completely surprised by the two explosions. She yipped from the pain to her ears and the unexpected shock of the detonations.