The Angel's Command

A crewman aboard the Devon Belle stood dutifully by with tray, decanter and goblet. Captain Redjack Teal took his

morning measure of Madeira wine, asking a seaman who was relaying observations from another stationed in the

crow's nest, "You fellow, what's the froggy doin' now, eh?"

The seaman shouted up to the lookout. "Cap'n wants to know what the French vessel's doin'!"

The lookout yelled back down. "Runnin' due south with the wind, clearin' up the mess we made o' their midship

decks!"

The seaman reported back to Teal, who had already heard the lookout's reply. "She's runnin' due south, sir, makin'

runnin' repairs as she goes."

Sipping Madeira, Teal dabbed his lips and smiled. "Stap me, that's a good un, eh? Makin' runnin' repairs whilst runnin'

away. Very droll indeed!"

The lookout called down again. "I think they're riggin' a cannon up at the stern, can't make it out properly though, sir!"

The seaman turned to his captain. "He says, he thinks ..."

Redjack dismissed him with a haughty glance. "Go away, sirrah, y'sound like an echo in a cave. I heard him. Gunner,

get up an' see what that oaf's blitherin' about, will you?"

The master gunner climbed obediently up the mast into the crow's nest with the lookout. Shading his eyes, he peered at

the Marie.

Teal called up testily. "Give him the demned glass!"

The gunner took a sighting through the telescope lens. "Looks like a long-nosed culverin, sir. We're well outta range.

'Twon't shoot half this distance, Cap'n, sir!"

Teal held out his goblet for more wine. "Well, let the silly Frenchies amuse themselves by tryin', eh? Haw haw haw!"

There was a distant echo of a sharp crack, followed seconds later by a whirring scream, ending in a loud crash!

Shorn off by chain shot, the Devon Belle's foremast swayed crazily for a moment, then fell.

Aboard the Marie, a loud cheer went up from the crew. Ben and Ned danced jubilantly around the French captain, the

dog barking and the boy shouting joyfully. "You did it, Cap'n, what a shot! Chopped off their foremast!"

The captain stood nonchalantly, a stick with burning tow at its end still held in his hand. He flourished it and bowed.

"Raphael Thuron was once a gunner aboard the Star of Sudan, a corsair that was the terror of the Red Sea!"

Ned passed Ben a thought. "There's old Pierre coming up from amidships. Look at the face on him, you'd think it was

the Marie that'd had her mast shot off!"

Pierre's misgivings became clear when he spoke to his captain. "When the galley got hit, most of the supplies went

with it."

Thuron's face fell. "Is there anything left?"

Pierre shrugged. "Half a leakin' cask of water an' one sack of flour, that's all I salvaged."

Captain Thuron's happy mood evaporated promptly. "We'll last out until we make Hispaniola or Puerto Rico. Take the

wheel, Pierre. Back on the eastern course. Anaconda, you and I will work out a ration of water and flour for each man

until we can get more provisions."

Ned sent a sideways glance and a thought to Ben. "Maybe we're not so lucky for the cap'n. Tighten your belt, mate,

there's hard days lying ahead of us."

5

CAPTAIN REDJACK TEAL WAS not a happy man. He was, in fact, rather unhappy and, as such, made sure the

entire crew of the Devon Belle shared his feelings wholeheartedly. It was noon of the second day since Teal had lost a

foremast to his own chain shot. The French buccaneer vessel was now more than a day and a night ahead, off into the

wide blue Caribbean Sea. The British privateer had continued sailing in pursuit, but like a gull with an injured wing,

she had soon dropped far behind, sloughing awkwardly along whilst running repairs were carried out on the broken

mast. After severely chastising all hands as he had vowed he would, Redjack had taken to his cabin. There was not a

man aboard who had avoided six strokes of a tarred and knotted rope's end, three strokes for losing the quarry and an

added three for what their captain termed "lack of discipline and a sullen demeanour."

At a timid tap on the cabin door, Teal glanced up from his noonday goblet of Madeira. He snapped out briskly,

"Come!"

The bosun stumped in, wooden splints bound either side of a fractured leg. Tugging his forelock respectfully, he stood

wincing. Teal pretended to study a chart that was spread across the table. After what he judged a suitable period, the

captain sat back, studying his bosun disdainfully. "Struth, man, have ye no tongue in your mouth, eh? Don't just stand

there lookin' sorry for yourself. Speak!"

The bosun's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "Beg to report, sir, the jury mast is now rigged an' in place, all shipshape

an' fit t'go under full sail again, Cap'n."

Redjack toyed with his goblet, staring at the bosun's injury. " 'Twill be some time before you can go under full sail

with that leg, eh?"

The bosun kept his eyes straight ahead and replied, "Aye, sir."

Teal sighed despairingly. "Lettin' a mast spar fall on y'leg like that. Lackaday dee, you're a foolish fellow. What are

ye?"

Still staring ahead, the man was forced to repeat, "A foolish fellow, sir!"

Rising in a world-weary fashion, Teal refilled his goblet to take out on deck with him. "Stir your stumps, then, let's go

an' take a look at what sort of a job's been made."

A shrill blast on the bosun's whistle sent the crew hurrying into four lines on the main deck. Without a second glance,

Teal swept by and went to inspect the new foremast. It was a section of common ash tree from the ship's lumber

stores, held by spikes and rope lashings to the original foremast stump, which was about four feet high. The ship's

carpenter and his mate, who had been applying coats of melted tar to the rope binding, stood respectfully to one side.

The captain circled the jury-rigged mast twice, peering closely at the work. "Hmm, not half bad, will it hold sail

without crackin', eh?"

The carpenter saluted. "Aye, sir, I reckon she'll take a blow!"

Teal, assuming the new mast was wood that they had picked up along the South American coast, smiled briefly at the

grizzled workman. "Good man! Though I wager ye'd sooner be usin' stout English timber, a trunk of ash from back

home, eh?"

Knowing what to do, the carpenter nodded cheerily. "Aye, sir!" He watched Teal strut off, wondering how a man

could become ship's captain without being able to identify a plain piece of English ash from the ship's stores, which

was what he had used.

Captain Redjack Teal went to stand on the afterdeck to give a speech to his crew waiting at rigid attention below on

the main deck. Now he was a stern father, berating his wayward children. "As captain of this, His Majesty's ship, and

as the bearer of the king's own letter of marque, I am bound by me duty t'keep the high seas free of pirates an' their ilk.

But my crew are failin' me! An' a demned sloppy lot ye are! Lettin' a confounded Frenchy get away like that, eh? Call

y'self gunners? I had him broadside on, an' all ye could do was wreck his worthless galley! Call y'selves marksmen?

There wasn't a single musket shot from us, no enterprisin' fellow tried to take out their steersman or captain! Then, if

y'please, we had a fool at the wheel who couldn't take us out o' the way of a single chain shot! He crippled us!"

All hands stared at the deck, as if the answer lay there. Teal continued working himself up into a fine old temper. "Call