Quince continued taking soundings as they proceeded south. After half an hour, they headed directly for a long, thin island about fifty yards from shore. Dense shrub thickets sat on the dunes and a salt marsh lined the beach. Suddenly the island became nothing more than a black mass as the storm blocked out the sun. The rain started and the crew scurried to batten down.
Cheatum guided the boat straight onto the beach. The direct manner in which the ship was driven ashore fascinated Jack. As a landlubber, he thought they would tear the bottom out of their craft. The second mate shouted at the bosun, Mentor, “Form a shore party! I want lines port and starboard, fore and aft, as far ashore as possible. Look lively now!”
The salt marshes slowed the boat as she cleaved her way onto the sand. A groan, and the one-hundred-ninety-ton ship stopped abruptly. Jack felt his stomach go queasy as the boat stopped pitching beneath his feet. The world seemed to spin as he made his way belowdecks.
“Mi caro,” said his mother as soon as he walked in. “I hear a loud bump.”
“We’ve purposely run aground on a small islet. We’re in a bay off North Carolina and we need to make repairs.” Jack caressed her hands. “You and father should try to come on deck, to get some air.”
His father awakened in obvious discomfort.
“Come, Ethan. Some air, por favor.”
“Please,” Jack implored. “Try to come with us.”
They made their way slowly on deck, Jack leading the way.
The ship was hard aground, almost perfectly level and very stable as she rested on her substantial keel. A working party was formed to repair the rudder. The men lowered the small boats. Lanterns were rigged over the fantail and an eerie light spread over the sound.
Jack stood with his parents by the port rail, breathing in the aroma off the shrub-laden dunes. In the shelter of the sound, the wind had slackened and the rain turned into a mist. The sun was gone but the twilight lit the figures moving about the deck. His mother seemed to revel at the light rain on her face.
“The boat has stopped its infernal movement and I have decided that I may live,” said Ethan as he looked out at the sound.
The three figures stood silent, gazing out at the darkening lagoon.
For the first time in over a week Jack felt at peace in his bunk. His parents were sleeping soundly; they seemed to have regained their strength and hope in the four or five hours since the ship had gone aground. His thoughts drifted lazily over the past weeks’ trip from Hamden to Salem; the confrontation in the tavern; the pretty Colleen—he could still recite verbatim her directions to the wharf. Wrapped snugly in his blanket, he felt warm, safe. Long tendrils of a strange sea creature flitted just outside his consciousness and with his hands he moved them aside, to see its red hair drifting silently across a pale face. He gently moved a curl from a cheek, and smiled in his sleep.
At just past four in the morning a thunderous crack rolled across Pamlico Sound. Jack could hear shouts on deck, then the sound of sailors running, their heels clomping the beams above his head. He rolled from his bunk. “A thunderstorm,” he told his parents reassuringly—driving his feet into his boots and running to the companionway. But looking up, he saw, as he suspected, a clear night sky.
Something was wrong.
Once on deck he saw it. Almost a mile to the north, just inside the protected waters of the sound, were sails reflecting the full moon. A schooner, her sails taut with air, bore down on them at great speed. The vessel’s skipper obviously was familiar with these shallows to chance such a maneuver this close to the dunes that separated them from open ocean. She was fast approaching the islet on which the Star had come aground. But why under full sail and accompanied by the roar of cannon, Jack couldn’t guess.
Suddenly, Jack spotted a series of flashes well behind the schooner, followed by a booming report and a high screaming sound that ripped the night air and passed over the masts of the Star. There was another ship behind the schooner that had just fired a volley that came uncomfortably close to the Star. Then the schooner was upon them; it passed within a hundred yards, seemingly unaware of their presence. If it was looking for the channel to open sea, the schooner missed it, passing too far south.
It seemed all the ship’s crew, with the exception of the working party in the boat, had lined the rail to watch the light-and-sound display. Jack asked Quince what was happening.
“I don’t rightly know, lad.” Quince resumed his trancelike preoccupation with the passing drama. “It would seem two ships have taken a dislike to one another.”
Jack moved back to the quarterdeck where second mate Cheatum stood, giving orders to the working party. “Douse those lanterns and keep your heads down, lads—or you’ll catch a stray ball.”
Jack sidled up to two of the older hands.
“The schooner would be a privateer, I’m thinking,” one said. “And from the looks of her, a right fast boat at that.”
“Can you see what flag she’s flying?”
“No. Probably John Bull, English built.”
Just then the schooner jibed and as she came broadside to the open lagoon, let loose with a deafening salvo. The projectiles streaked back across the bay and soon a fire was visible on the other ship. The larger, pursuing ship swung east to free her guns to fire at the much faster schooner, once again rapidly approaching the helpless Star.
It was now obvious that the schooner was looking for the deep channel just astern of the Star. Mr. Quince suddenly came to life and countermanded Cheatum’s earlier order to douse lights. “Fire up the lanterns, men! These buggers don’t know we’re here and it’s a tight fit through that pass a’hind us. Be quick about it!”
The ship in the lagoon fired its volley too soon and the balls drove harmlessly into the dunes on the barrier island. The schooner bore down relentlessly on the Star’s position. She seemed intent on ramming the grounded boat, but at the last second must have noticed the relit lanterns and tacked to port thirty yards astern. It came so close that Jack could see the startled faces of the other crew, gaping at the beached ship. As the schooner tacked away, Jack read Helena on her fantail. The crew of the Helena were too busy between the reef and the island to fire their cannons but were easily outdistancing the larger ship. The shouts from her officers to the crew sounded like French. The other boat tacked again for a broadside at the fleeing Helena. The shots this time were aimed higher and struck the Helena’s mainsail gaff, tattering the sail beneath. The schooner didn’t seem bothered and tacked again across the narrow stretch of water.
As the Helena disappeared down the slough, the larger ship lumbered slowly and carefully past the Star in dogged pursuit. A fierce fire on deck consumed a quarter of it. Smoke rolled out of several forward hatches. Jack could see men working feverishly on deck with buckets trying to drench the fire.
“The man is stubborn.” This came from Quince, who had come up behind Jack. “Break off the engagement and put out your fire, lad.” He was talking to himself, Jack realized, and watched him shake his head in dismay. Suddenly, Jack’s mother and father stood beside him, their faces lit by the fire on the passing warship.