Elizabeth smiled and shook her head in wonder at what a naive, simple country girl she had become.
“Here, boy,” Billy snapped, and a young boy with a wheelbarrow grabbed up the handles and maneuvered the vehicle over to them with practiced ease. “You know the Ship and Compass on Crooked Lane, by the Town House?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take this dunnage there, boy, and be quick.” He pressed a coin into the boy’s hand-Billy’s usual excessive payment-which made the young man’s eyes go wide. When the shock had worn off he lifted the trunk and bag into the barrow and hurried off with great alacrity.
“Good lad,” Billy called after him. He nodded his thanks to Black Tom and then, with a gesture as if he were welcoming Elizabeth into his home, he indicated that they might now proceed down the wharf to the town beyond.
They stepped over rough-cut planks worn smooth by the traffic. To their left, the wharf’s single row of permanent buildings, big two- and three-story structures, surprisingly substantial, given that their foundation was just a wooden platform.
Long Wharf ran on to King Street and into the heart of Boston town. A block beyond, Crooked Lane intersected King. The Ship and Compass was two doors down from the corner.
Elizabeth paused, looked up at the sign that hung over the door, a bas-relief ship superimposed on a compass rose.
They had made it, had arrived in Boston at last. On Billy’s urging she had agreed to come all this way, to try and root out Frederick Dunmore’s darkest secret.
And suddenly all of the fine arguments Billy Bird had made in the inn in Williamsburg seemed insane, the task before them impossible.
Whatever had she been thinking?
Chapter 22
The closer they drew to the French Indiaman, the grimmer things looked. Marlowe had purposely sent no flags aloft until they had smoked the stranger’s identity. Once they had, he ran French colors aloft, fore, main, and mizzen. It did not appear to have fooled them.
The two ships had closed to a mile or so when the Indiaman began to casually reduce her spread of canvas to fighting sail. The studding sails disappeared first, and though they were not doused with any sort of breathtaking speed, neither was the evolution the kind of slow and clumsy work that would indicate a small or poorly trained crew.
Topgallants after that, with hands sent aloft to stow, and then the mainsail was hauled up in its gear. It was all unhurried, almost leisurely, like a confident duelist who carefully removes his coat and waistcoat and sets them down with care, certain he will be putting them on again soon.
The Elizabeth Galleys watched this and they were not immune to the effect.
Not that the men who sailed under Marlowe were wanting in courage, not at all. But being ordered into battle was one thing, being able to choose one’s fight was another, and the closer they drew, the bigger and more imposing the Indiaman looked, and the less certain they became.
“She is a monstrous thing,” Bickerstaff noted. He and Marlowe were at the weather rail on the quarterdeck and not aft in their private place. The time for privacy was past. “Are they all so big?”
“Generally. Not much protection from the navy in the East Indies, and quite a bit of danger. There are the native pirates, of course, and the Great Mogul’s navy. And now these fellows on the Pirate Round, sailing out of New York and Newport and such and taking whatever they can lay hands on. Thomas Tew’s successes there in ninety-four have quite inspired those of an adventurous mind.”
“Sailors from the American colonies? Taking prizes with never a letter of marque?”
“Shocking, ain’t it?” Marlowe agreed.
“Thomas Tew, if I am not mistaken, died while holding his guts in place with his own hands, trying to replicate his famous voyage.”
“True enough, but those of an adventurous bent understand that such things could not happen to them.”
Marlowe looked forward at the grim men standing by their guns. He wondered how many of them thought they were impervious to French iron. Not many, he imagined, not anymore. Given the chance, he reckoned a solid majority would now vote to turn and run, but none of them down there was going to be the one to broach the subject, and neither was he. The die was cast.
“How do you think she is armed?” Bickerstaff asked. His was an active mind. Marlowe thought that if Bickerstaff was about to be shot in the head he would be wondering about the make of the gun, the merits of firearms over cold steel, the physiological aspects of a bullet tearing through flesh.
“Probably eighteen-pounders. Perhaps twenty-fours. I think I count twelve gunports.”
“Indeed? Heavy armament, to be sure. Much heavier than ours. Have they the men to work those big guns?”
“Good question. That might be their weakness. You see, for all their arms and man-of-war styling and such, East India companies-and this is true of all of them-are still merchantmen, which means they are parsimonious to a fault. They’ll keep crews as small as ever they can to save on wages, so it is possible that their guns make a great show, but they do not have the crews to work them.”
“If that is the case, then, this should not be a bloody day for us. Either broadsides or boarding, we should have them.”
“We should. Unfortunately, the Indiamen are often used to transport troops. If that is the case she could be packed with men. Trained fighting men.”
“Which could explain her apparent disregard of the potential threat we pose.”
“Yes it could. And damned insulting it is, I might add. I think she should be quite terrified of us.”
If the Indiaman was in fact terrified, she continued to do an admirable job of hiding the fact. The Elizabeth Galley, with all plain sail set, and studding sails to weather, ran down fast on her, but she made no attempt to run, no attempt to gain the weather gauge, no attempt to defend herself beyond reducing down to fighting sail. It was making Marlowe’s men very nervous indeed.
They were no more than a quarter of a mile apart when Marlowe saw something flash on the Indiaman’s side. He put his glass to his eye. They had opened gunports and run out the great guns. Marlowe shook his head. Now what?
“Studding sails in! Clew up topgallants and mainsail!”
That was the first thing. Now what?
They had to exchange broadsides, at least two. That would tell Marlowe how well manned they were, whether he should consider boarding, or standing off in an artillery duel, or throwing up his hands and running for the horizon.
“Get those Frenchy colors down, run up the English,” he called. “Sail trimmers, stand by. Gunners, a broadside on my command…”
He looked aloft. The French colors were coming down, those of Old England on their way up. Do this thing proper, he thought.
The English ensign hit the main truck. “Larboard your helm!” Marlowe called, and the Elizabeth Galley swung off. “Sail trimmers, meet her…fire!”
The larboard broadside went off in one great blast. The deck shook like an earthquake under their feet, the thick smoke swirled and rolled downwind, and the men, well trained by now, fell to loading again.
Marlowe saw shot fall around the Frenchman and two at least strike the high-sided ship. Now the Indiaman was turning to starboard as well, bringing her broadside to bear. More and more of her high side was revealed as she turned. Marlowe counted gunports. Fourteen per side, not twelve.
The Frenchman fired. Marlowe saw the smoke through the glass, spurting from fourteen muzzles, and he whipped the glass from his eye as the noise of the broadside and the whistle of iron and the heavy fusillade all reached the Elizabeth Galley together. Round shot whipped past, punched holes in the sails, slammed into the side of the ship, tore sections of bulwark free.