Chapter 27: Taking a Ship

20 July, 1686 Afternoon

After discovering the Angry Whore had been stolen Captain Shadrach Bass declared that he would do whatever it took to not only get his ship back but also manage revenge on those that had taken her.

Word came to him that the two Blanchart sisters along with the Spaniard girl he had recently auctioned had escaped but he never made the connection between them and his missing ship. His expectations of who had taken the Angry Whore were such that the thought of women having done the deed he guessed no more than the man in the moon.

Bass, following the plan adopted by so many others of his kind cudgeled his brains for a means to get back that which he himself had stolen not so very long ago.

Some time passed but presently Bass fell in with the notorious Captain Stede Storey, a fellow after his own kidney. The same day that Story anchored both his Ketch the "Black Howl" and his Sloop the "Satan's Strumpet" in Port Royal harbor Bass sought him out.

Storey owed his very life to Bass who had saved him from a walk on the dreadful plank with a bandage around his eyes and a rope around his elbows, after Storey's ship had been taken by the English sloop of war, the "Greyhound" a year before. So as compensation for having saved his life Bass demanded that Storey allow him to take temporary command of the Satan's Strumpet and that both it and the Black Howl search the sea and recover his ship the Angry Whore.

Storey was disinclined at first not wanting to engage his ships in any combat where there was not the prize of booty for the trouble, but two things convinced him to assist Bass. First, he did indeed owe Bass for coming to his aid after the crew of the Greyhound had taken his ship, and second and even more compelling was that it had come to his ears that Bass's ship had been taken by four women and he was convinced that retaking the Angry Whore from mere women would be of little, if any trouble at all. And if little else, his prize for such a simple task would be that Bass would once and for good be repaid.

Storey told Bass what he had heard concerning the taking of his ship. Bass was at first reluctant to believe that women could have been responsible in a business of such an undertaking, but eventually giving into it he remembered the Cuban inn keeper that had sold him the Spanish girl Isabel mentioning she was from Portobello and also that she had a sister currently living in La Nouvelle Orleans. He surmised that sooner or later the Angry Whore would show up at one or the other of those two ports, so gathering together from his own crew twenty other spirits as hardy and reckless as himself to augment the crew already aboard the Satan's Strumpet, Bass put boldly out to sea as provisional Captain of the Satan's Strumpet with the Black Howl, and Captain Storey following close behind.

Bass sailed to Portobello and then to La Nouvelle Orleans but having learned nothing concerning his ship he selected the port of Cabo San Antonio on the far western side of Cuba which was half way between the two ports of interest in which to lay too where he stationed a lookout and then waited.

Some three weeks later the lookout sighted sails on the horizon coming from the direction of Portobello. Hoping that luck had finally put the Angry Whore within his reach he explained his battle plan to Storey while remaining hidden in the harbor until he had verified that the on-coming ship was indeed the Angry Whore. Once satisfied it was his ship, under full canvas he and Storey sailed out from the bay after his prey.

The sea battle had turned nothing like he had envisioned, and he was very confused at how four female run-a-way slaves had managed to not only steal his ship but then to have had such a decisive success in its single-ship engagement with Storey's two well gunned ships eluded him. No matter, after the battle Captain Shadrach Bass was pissed. Sure, Bass had to admit that both his Sloop and the Black Howl had suffered some serious damage still that cowardly bastard Storey should have held tight until he'd gotten his ship back! But at the first sign of trouble the coward had fled.