Chapter 9: The Sloop

19 November, 1686 Afternoon

It was mid-day and the Maidens Revenge was sailing north just off the east coast of southern Florida. Felipe Santos stood at the helm and let his eyes wander toward the De Droom sailing some half mile ahead of them, her armament was pathetic in comparison to that of the Maidens Revenge, but that was why Carmen, ah... Captain O' Daire had her sailing in front of them, so the Maiden could protect the Barque's flank if the need arose.

Then suddenly Felipe noticed two small bundles rise up a flag halyard on the De Droom's yardarm. They reached the yard and broke out into bright colored signal flags.

"Oh Dios," he swore.

"Signal from the De Droom!" Felipe yelled out loudly while stomping down on the deck with his boot. He didn't remember all the signals Captain O' Daire and Captain Sandhurst had created for the little two ship fleet, but this one he remembered, 'enemy in sight'.

"Enemy in sight!" He yelled out even louder.

After getting dressed Carmen exited the Captains cabin and put her glass to her eye and swept the lower reaches of sea near the horizon. She fixed the Barque in her lens. The ship was sailing north with a light breeze from the south, immediately she saw that Felipe had not been mistaken, Captain Sandhurst had raised the signal she and he had agreed upon to mean enemy in sight.

Carmen walked toward the forecastle and made her way forward. To port and starboard Aba, Teresa, Ihon, Isabel and Claire were just running out the guns, and placing reloads, buckets of water, and smoldering station portfire's beside each. Aba stepped over and walked forward with her.

"Cleared for action Captain," he reported.

"In a mere ten minutes."

"We'll do better next time," Aba grinned.

"Any better and we'll be ready before we even spot the enemy," Carmen returned his grin.

Up top Cog, Scarlet and Constance were high in the nets clewing up the foresail, and it bellowed like a curtain revealing pure white where only blue water was seen before. Then they set the jib and tied in the braces. While below Jon was busy watering down the decks.

Carmen arrived at the bow. She stood on the heel of the bowsprit and swept the horizon with her glass. Off the northern end of a peninsula jutting out from the headland she saw the sloop. It was on a port tack, and with her sails drawn in, she was a boat of size and looked lean and fast, plunging south by southeast against the wind heading directly toward the De Droom. Through the glass Carmen could see an occasional flash of white water boiling around her cutwater and streaming aft along her oiled sides, even in the light air. She was lying as close to the wind as she could, and that was very close.

Carmen also saw flying from her main the black and white of a Jolly Roger. There were carriage guns on her deck, ten in all, run out from gunports pierced through the Sloop's bulwarks. The upper deck was crowded, with at least fifty men aboard her.

That was all that she needed to see. "Every sheet we have lady and gentlemen!" she yelled upward, then to the others below she called out, "At your quarters and ready to engage! Teresa, hoist our colors!"

Another battle Carmen thought to herself. She remembered the small bay where the former crew of the De Droom had attempted to murder them in their sleep. The memory of the lightning and thunder of gun fire, the screams of the wounded men, the dark blood on the cold waters of the bay, were as vivid now as they had been on the morning of that one-sided battle almost a month before. "Just like that morning on the bay, more are to die this day," she voiced softly to herself.

The Barque was just drawing abeam of the southern end of the peninsula when Felipe called out, "De Droom's coming about, Captain!"

Carmen startled and looked up. She looked over toward the Barque and saw she was on the starboard tack now and heading more directly toward the Maidens Revenge.

"Thank you." Carmen called over to him.

Aba who had been standing next to Carmen followed her gaze out toward the De Droom, and having heard Carmen's soft words he said after a pause, "Men die in battle, Captain, They were not honorable men, and they made their own choice."

"I know, Aba. Thank you." She looked forward again. The De Droom was less than a quarter mile away, but on its converging course the Sloop was closing fast and now clearly visible even without the glass. She was on the same tack as before, clawing south by south-east as fast as she could, which was not nearly as fast as the Maidens Revenge, or so Carmen hoped.

"We best think of how we'll engage," Scarlet suggested to Carmen as he dropped down onto the deck from above.

Carmen who had been looking aloft at the spread of canvas of the fore-and-aft mainsail, winged out to starboard, turned her attention once again to the Barque and her pursuer. She was startled by how quickly the distance was closing, but the De Droom was running for her life, and there was no question how swift a sailor the Maidens Revenge was, "I was thinking," she responded to Jack's comment turning toward him, "The De Droom is still on starboard tack. If she holds that course she'll pass down the Maidens Revenge's starboard side and the Maiden can shield her from the Sloop's guns. That's when we'll offer our own welcome."

"We can give her a taste of our big swivels even before the De Droom is alongside Captain." Aba suggested.

"Good idea. Make it so." Carmen told the big man, then turning to Jack she said, "Jack, relieve Felipe at the wheel please."

Aba nodded, "Aye," then he quickly conferred with his gunners before stationing himself behind the fore port swivel, while Constance took a position behind the fore starboard swivel.

"Aye, aye," Jack returned and he hurriedly made his way toward the helm.

Fifteen minuets elapsed then when the De Droom was less than five hundred yards away from the Maidens Revenge, still on a starboard tack, she suddenly turned up into the wind and her small square sail braced around and came aback. Her speed dropped until she lay hove too, as if she were fixed to the bottom.

"What the hell?" Carmen yelled through cupped hands toward the Barque.

The De Droom let lose with her small port cannons toward the Sloop, and two puffs of smoke belched out from the Barque's side and two jets of water shot up between it and the oncoming Sloop, then her square sail braced around again and filled and the big mainsail was sheeted in and the Barque resumed her previous course, heading as directly as she could for the Maidens Revenge and the protection of her guns.

"Let's give that rascal a shot Constance!" Aba called out and instantly his swivel gun fired from the Maidens bow.

A second later Constance's swivel responded in kind

Without a second of wasted time Teresa and Ihon immediately began reloading the two swivel's that had just been fired.

Neither shot hit but based on the Sloops tack change they had certainly gotten her attention.

What will he do now? Carmen tried to read the Sloops Captain's mind, as if understanding a strangers mind was natural to her, and in some ways it was. She had honed that talent to a fine edge through hundreds of hours of watching her father and uncle bartering for cargos all over the European Atlantic, she was only now, since having taken command of her own ship, beginning to understand the intrigues of a mind that wanted her and her crew dead.

The Sloop, now less than two hundred yards away, flew up into the wind, her big jib flogging as she turned. She tacked smartly, settling on her new course, now heading for the Maidens Revenge. She would come up the Maidens port side and Carmen realized the Sloop intended to run on them so her large crew could pour over the rail in a rush of boarders, overwhelming the Maidens Revenge's crew. Or so it intended.

"Aba! Constance! I believe they're hoping to board, port side!" There was little time, the Sloop was no more than one hundred yards away. "We'll spin on our heel right in front of them! Felipe! Diego! Jon! Stand ready at the braces! Starboard guns will fire, then all hands to the port guns! Let's do it! Starboard your helm Jack!" This last order she called over her shoulder to Scarlet at the tiller.

From the corner of her eye Carmen saw Jack Scarlet pushing the tiller to starboard. The Maidens Revenge heeled slightly as she came broadside to the wind, and overhead the yards braced around in the opposite direction. Forward, Aba who was at the number one gun peered over the barrel and out toward the oncoming Sloop.

"Fire as you bear ladies!" Aba shouted to Constance manning the number two gun, Claire at three and Isabel at four. Then Aba stepped back and brought the portfire slowmatch down to the touch hole. The gun roared out and slammed back on its breeching, then two, and then three, and finally four fired, then as one the crew abandoned the spent guns and ran to the port artillery. Pieces of bulwark were torn from the Sloops port bow and the boarders who had gathered there jumped back and ducked below the rail.

The Maidens Revenge continued to turn, presenting more and more of her broadside to the oncoming sloop. One by one the port cannons roared out, blasting dark holes in the Sloops sails and knocking pieces of her hull into the air. So efficient were the Maidens gunners that up till then the Sloop had not been able to release a single shot of its own.