Pirate

A pair of dividers was in the drawer, and I used the latitude lines to estimate the mileage and time to reach the channel. Sixty-four miles separated us from our destination, and I divided that by our speed. If the wind held, we would reach the passage in seven hours. It would be too late to navigate the narrow channel in low light, so I planned on anchoring for the night just outside of it. I relaxed slightly. We were fortunate that the boat we had stumbled on had a shallow draft. At eight feet below the waterline, we could skirt the shallows, where the larger vessels, including the Navy, were restricted to the deeper water.

I went back on deck after doublechecking my calculations and saw Rory at the helm, a smile on her face, which she tried to hide with a snarl as I approached. “We should reach the passage to the harbor around sunset. We’ll have to anchor for the night before making our approach. It’s too narrow to try it in low light.”

“Don’t think I’ll change my mind in another night,” she said.

I came close to walking away, but turned to her instead. “Might not be as easy as I thought when we make port. These men were smugglers.” I watched as she turned to me.

“There’re barrels of spices and bales of tobacco below, as well as some unmarked crates, bound for New Orleans from the log. I suspect they were slavers as well, from the chains in the hold.”

“That’s not going to change my opinion one bit. Pirates, smugglers, the lot of you are the same. If a pirate steals from a smuggler, does that make him less of a pirate?”

I was growing tired of fighting with her and left her at the wheel. Swift and Syd were leaning against the foremast, talking quietly, but stopped as I approached. I gave them our position and my plan to anchor outside of the channel tonight. They nodded, and continued their conversation as I moved forward to the bowsprit to think. Rory was content by herself at the helm, and I was clearly not welcome in the other men’s conversation.

I sat on the narrow point of the bowsprit, both legs extended toward the water, catching spray on my bare feet as the bow sliced through the small waves and thought about what we needed. First was to get Rory off the boat. Her presence was unsettling to not only me, but from the way the other men avoided her, I could tell they would welcome her departure as well. Next, we needed supplies and news. Learning the location of the naval fleet, who they had captured, and which pirates were still at large in these waters was essential before we began to make a plan for the future. I had brought enough coin to buy supplies and a longboat that could be towed from our craft. From the looks of the narrow passage on the chart, it was water that I only intended to try once. With a longboat, we could move east on the ocean side from the harbor, anchor off one of the islands in deeper water, and row through the shallow water to Rhames and the others.

I must have fallen asleep, because the sun was well past its zenith when a large wave splashed me. The wind had picked up, and we were clearly moving faster than I had estimated earlier. I shook the sleep from my head and walked to the helm, where I checked our course and dropped the knot line.

“How long has the wind been up?” I asked Rory, who was still at the wheel.

“Just now,” she said.

I retrieved and counted ten knots, estimated the time from the sun, and went below to calculate our position and change my estimated time of our arrival. From the position I had plotted earlier, I changed the calculation to our current speed and figured our arrival an hour earlier. With the chart back in its case, I went back on deck and looked at the chain of islands in the distance, watching for the gap that would mark the channel.

As if on cue, an hour later I saw it and called to Swift and Syd to drop sail and ready the anchor. I yelled back to Rory to steer south, toward shallower water, and went forward to drop the lead. Fifteen minutes later it showed us in two fathoms and I signaled for the anchor to be dropped.

31

A short but strong storm blew in overnight bringing gusty winds and rain. I was up at the first drops and stayed on deck, hunkered under a tarp to keep watch through the night. The wind had shifted to the north, and we swung on the anchor as it changed. My primary focus was on our position, for if the anchor pulled with the wind from this quarter, we would ground. I was wet and cold by the time the sun rose, but the storm had played out. I wasted no time in ordering the anchor raised and the fore and mainsails set. The tailwind allowed us to cruise on a dead run with a following sea. Not the fastest point of sail, but to navigate the narrow channel there was no better condition. The boat moved forward as the booms were pushed out perpendicular to the boat, and the sails filled.