Chapter 10

Capt. Scruggs departed as soon as possible, taking Cookie with him. Oh, well, Jeb had turned out to be almost as good a cook as Cookie, so I supposed that I could live for a week without Cookie’s masterpieces. At least, Nina and I were together, so it was not all bad. Among other things, we spent some time practicing with our new guns. I was anxious to see how well the new revolvers showed themselves versus the shotguns. Actually, that was a crucial question.

We headed back toward the route normally used by the cruise ships. Our hope was to be able to find a pirate to relieve the boredom. I did spend a little time in the poker games, but I was so much better than this crew that there was no real fun in it. I quit playing before I took everybody’s money.

It was the third day of hunting that we caught sight of another yacht. We automatically assumed that it was just another pirate, so we put on all speed to intercept it before it could find a victim. To our surprise, they slowed down when they saw us coming. That definitely was not something that we expected of a pirate, so I was more interested than ever in catching up to them.

When we were close enough, I hailed the other boat, “AHOY! THIS IS NINA’S JOY OUT OF NEW ORLEANS! WHO ARE YOU?”

“HELLO, THERE. THIS IS JOSEPH’S PRIDE OUT OF GALVESTON! WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?”

“NOTHING, THANK YOU! I WAS ABOUT TO ASK YOU THE SAME QUESTION! DID YOU KNOW THAT THESE WATERS ARE FULL OF PIRATES WHO WOULD THINK NOTHING OF KILLING EVERY PERSON ON BOARD YOUR YACHT?”

“NO, SURELY YOU JEST! NOBODY HAS SAID ANYTHING TO ME ABOUT PIRATES!”

“WE MAKE A BUSINESS OF CHASING PIRATES! WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE ONE AT FIRST! I SUGGEST THAT YOU STAY CLOSER TO SHORE IF YOU ARE NOT HEAVILY ARMED AND READY FOR A FIGHT!”

“I AM NOT WORRIED! I HAVE MY TRUSTY COLT WITH ME!”

“THAT IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH! WE HAVE EIGHT PEOPLE ABOARD WITH PISTOLS AND SHOTGUNS, AND WE HAVE HAD SOME CHANCY FIGHTS! SIR, YOU ARE ASKING FOR SERIOUS TROUBLE IF YOU DO NOT HEAD NEARER SHORE RIGHT AWAY!”

“SEE HERE, MY GOOD MAN, YOU CANNOT SCARE ME! WE ARE ON A PLEASURE CRUISE IN MY NEW YACHT, AND I HAVE NO INTENTION OF LISTENING TO YOUR HORROR STORIES! WE CAN TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES!”

“OKAY, IT IS YOUR NECK THAT YOU ARE RISKING! I WISH YOU LUCK! YOU ARE GOING TO NEED IT! GOOD DAY TO YOU! UH-OH, THERE GOES A SIGNAL OF A PIRATE ATTACK ON A CRUISE SHIP! WE HAVE TO LEAVE YOU NOW! GOODBY!”

A red flare had gone off well to the south of us. I just hoped that we could get there in time to prevent a tragedy. This fool had taken up enough of our time.

Capt. Abernathy had turned us toward the distress signal and was putting on the maximum amount of sail. Dammit, we were going to have to tack to reach the cruise ship. I was sure that we would be too late.

Unfortunately, I was correct. Just as we arrived, a pirate boat was pulling away from the cruise ship. They acted at first as if they had not seen us, so we were able to get fairly close before they realized the danger they were in. They were putting up as much sail as they had, but it was too late for them. The speed that we already had made it easy for us to catch them.

I called everybody available to arms, but that was really unnecessary. Our crew was as anxious to attack pirates as Nina and I were, so they were already drawing shotguns and pistols from the arms lockers. A dirty trick suddenly occurred to me. I had no trouble seeing the helmsman as he was wrestling with the wheel trying to escape the cruise ship’s bulk. His wind was being severely disturbed by the relatively huge hull, and their wind was very sporadic for them at the moment.

That meant that we were gaining fast, but we were not bobbing around very much, so I thought that I would try to shoot the helmsman with my new pistol. I could put nine shots into his vicinity, and I hoped that at least one might strike him. I propped against the top of a locker and used both hands to steady my aim. I took a breath and began firing. I pumped out those nine shots as fast as possible while still aiming at the helmsman. Damned if I did not hit him at least once! I could not have done better with my Henry rifle.

I quickly reloaded, as was my normal practice. I was not going to let an enemy catch me with an empty gun if I could possibly avoid it. All of the sailors were starring at me in awe as the pirate boat began to wander without someone to hold the wheel steady. Another man ran to take the wheel, and I said, “Nina, you give it a try.”

She followed my example and emptied her Schloss at the helmsman. The new man also fell, and I wondered if anyone else was going to be so foolish as to rush to the wheel. Apparently, the captain saw what we were doing and ordered that the sails be furled. At least, they would not lose any more men at the wheel. I was sure that the change in tactics was not from any kind consideration for his men; instead, the captain must of been saving his men to defend against us when we boarded.

By this time, we were getting very close to the pirate boat, and they were firing rifles at us. All of our men were keeping their heads down, but I was concerned for our helmsman. I could not tell that the pirates were actually aiming at him, but they certainly were not very good shots if they were. In any case, I was going to try to come up with some sort of protection for him when we next made port.

Meanwhile, we were now close enough to the pirate to cast the grappling hooks and put out the fenders. Four of our men were doing that while two crewmen, Nina, and I were all shooting shotguns at the pirates. They were sensibly keeping their heads down, and we were soon locked solidly to the pirates’ near railing.

These pirates were surviving better than the others had when we had fired so many shotguns at them. The difference was that these pirates had a wooden barricade to shelter behind, and it was a rare buckshot that could penetrate the wood with enough force to do us any good.

I said to Nina, “Shift back to your Schloss. Those .45 slugs should tear through that thin wood barricade.” We were now on a more unsteady deck than we had been when we were running at full speed, but the pistols were easy to control, so we had adequate conditions to shoot the single bullet if we were careful. It occurred to me that now was when we needed that “automatic pistol” that Mr. Schloss had talked about. I decided to order a couple for Nina and me to have one, each.

That shift in guns made a remarkable difference. We were able to stay almost fully protected, yet shoot aimed shots at the pirates. I told the crewmen to switch to pistols for now; they were just wasting shotgun shells. Their lack of practice with the pistols did show up at this time, but they were still able to do better than they had with the shotguns.

This was the longest fight, nearly 20 minutes, that we had ever had with pirates, but we had their fire reduced enough that we could send over a boarding party. Everything considered, I had our boarding party switch back to the shotguns so that accurate shooting was less of a problem.

The .45 caliber pistol slugs had been more effective than I had expected. I would keep that in mind for our next battle. There were no living pirates on the main deck, so I sent two-man parties below to look for stragglers. Meanwhile, Nina and I headed aft to hunt for the captain. As in the case the last time, the only pirates on the deck back there were the two dead helmsmen. It was apparent that the captain was hiding somewhere. There were no lockers here where he could be hiding, so I expected him to be found hiding below decks.

After only a few minutes, there was a burst of gunfire below, and we figured that the captain had been found. Shortly thereafter, a sailor came running up to me and announced, “Mr. Terhune, Sir, we found the captain and he is now dead. As far as we can tell, all of the pirates are dead.”

“Thank you, Joey. Please show us where you found the captain.” He was obviously in what had been the captain’s cabin, and his body was riddled with buckshot. He had tried to fight off the sailors with shotguns by means of a Colt Navy. Well, he had been monumentally unsuccessful!