Princess of the Blood. Roxana Malaventura

I give the order, I want you to shoot away the rudder of that black frigate. You will have two shots – one for range and one for business. I shall count on you.”

      “Ja, ja, Morm.”

      “Oh, Guns…”

      “Ja Kapten?”

      “What of that corporal?”

      “Next shot get him. Strange thing –meine schwester never forgive me, so to sea go I.”

      Historians do not generally record how many battles are won and lost beneath the skirts of women who are nowhere near the field.

      “Carry on, Guns,” I said, dismissing him and returning to my cabin where breakfast awaited – coffee, toast and marmalade, a perfectly-boiled egg and Polly standing to attention behind my chair. After eating, I performed the never-ending duty of the Captain, entering the day’s details in the ship’s log and marking up my course and position on a chart, before returning to the quarterdeck. The crew must ever see their Captain exercising command, and with the prospect of action dancing before me, I had not the patience to be far from it.

      With the passing of the hours, a fair southeasterly breeze had sprung up – this gladdened me, for my quarry still held to a westerly course. This meant that, should he suddenly bring his helm over to lead us under his guns, only a turn to larboard could give his gunners steady aim, yet must leave him dead in the water until he could haul about and catch the wind again. We had gained on him, slowly but steadily since I breakfasted, and when I judged a league and-a-half separated his taffrail from Hecate’s bowsprit, I called the Boatswain to hold that position. As soon as I was satisfied, I called the helm to bring us a point or two to starboard, and hold there, off his after quarter. Riding in this position, if the wind held, I might hold my foe at bay forever. If the wind held.

      “Helm!” I said, “How feel you this breeze? Is she steady?” My witch-doctor took a hand off the wheel and spread its wizened fingers in the air, turning his palm this way and that.

      “Two hour, No more,” was his answer. I never question him, though he baffles me.

      “Guns!” I called.

      “Aye, Ma’am,” was the reply from the foredeck.

      “Are you loaded and primed?”

      “Ja, ja, Min dam.”

      “Then stand half your men down by turns, I want them rested.”

      “Aye, aye.”

      “Bos’un!”

      “Oi!”

      It is neither my business nor my intention to give sailing lessons to the Reader, but as a good hour remained before action would become practicable, I should take the opportunity to see that a few essential principles are understood. Amidst the writings of Captain John Smith is this sublime statement:

       Of all fabrics a ship is most excellent, requiring more art in building, rigging, sailing, trimming, defending and mooring with such a number of terms and names in continual motion, not understood of any landsman, as more would think of, but so few that know them.

      How sad it is that this great man, among the most gifted navigators of his age, is now remembered only for his affair with Pocahontas. His chart of Bermuda, now almost a century old, is still among the best I have.

      The point he makes is that the true art of sail is learned only by a lifetime at sea. The good management of a deep-water sailing ship demands sensitivity and sinew – the delicate application of brute force. Sail and rudder are the engines, wind and wave their fuel and only rarely working in harmony. On a vessel even as small and handy as Hecate are miles of cordage – lines, braces and yards by the dozen, each with a purpose. By ‘trimming’ Capt. Smith means the unending checking and bracing of sheets and yards that keeps wind filling the sails and water flowing over the rudder. Every change in current or breeze, and every order to alter course, calls for pulley-hauley – working the rigging, doing what sailors do. The work is hazardous and hard; it makes a sailor hard withal. He faces danger with defiance instead of fear – he cannot flee, so he will fight, as fiercely against a Cape Horn gale as against an enemy’s guns.

      Yet within those deep mines of hardship and hazard lie rich veins of knowledge, of understanding how the wind tells its weight to a sailor by the feel of a rope in his hand, how the tint of the sky at dawn or dusk reveals a latitude, a landfall or the next day’s weather.

      “Stand down the forenoon watch for biscuit and beef. And dole out rum, a full ration to each man.” Scarcely a wink was needed by the Boatswain to pass on this order, as with cheers and grins half the crew made their way below to dine. They had sailed Hecate steadily since daybreak; human nature dictated that by now, with the prospect of bloodshed dangling before them, even the hardest-hearted was in need of an hour’s rest and calm. As soon as MacDonald’s whistle called them back to their stations, the orders were repeated for the second watch, and when the sun stood at its zenith I had a full crew, fed, rested and standing to quarters with a tot of Jamaica’s best warming their blood. Almost to the minute of my witch-doctor’s foretelling it, the wind dropped.

      Almost immediately, the lookout’s cry brought a flutter to every heart aboard: “Coming about, Ho!”

      The distant frigate, staking more than he knew, for he knew nothing of my long nines, and at a range where he could scarcely hope that one ball in twenty might find its mark, had put his helm over, as I knew he must, hard to port. Raising my glass, I clearly saw two long rows of gun-ports yawning, and a slender figure, dressed all in black, holding his own glass at me from a high poop-deck.

      “Quiet ship!” I cried. The last thing I wanted was an order to go unheard. “Helm!”

      “Aye?”

      “Feel you the mark?”

      “Aye!”

      “Then you have the guns. One shot for range.”

      The helmsman paused, waiting, easing Hecate down the face of a swell and following her up the next, waiting.

      Amidships on the enemy, a flash, a puff of smoke – still my helmsman waited, while the first hostile shot flew towards us, splashing into the sea ahead, short by half a cable’s length, but well-aimed. Not the best gunnery I had seen in those waters, or in those days, but well better than most. If that shot’s nearness were no fluke, the next might spell ruin.

      To make my own shot tell, I had yielded command to the Helm, and while he held it I could give no order, neither to alter course nor slacken sail. Hecate was sailing headlong into a hail of shot, and the next few seconds might be our last. Hecate ’s prow began again to rise upon the swell.

      “Shoot….now!” called Helm, and my first gun barked. I raised my glass again, to see the foe’s port-side after-lantern and a uniformed man standing beside the black-clad figure vanish in shattered fragments and a spray of blood. The black-clad figure, spyglass raised, barely flinched.

      “Swab und reload!” bellowed Günnar Günnarsson. Even as he did, the black frigate disappeared behind the flame and smoke belching from two dozen guns.

      “Shoot…now!” cried the Helm, again, as a storm of enemy shot tore through sails and rigging, through oak timbers and young men’s bodies. I felt a shudder as Hecate staggered – a hit for’ard, by the feel, and something to worry about, but not yet. In vain I sought the effect of my own shot; Günnarson had repeated the order to reload before I saw it fall – on his waterline, a fathom to larboard of the stern-post. The foe was holed, wounded, but still well able to float and fight, and I needed to see his next move – would he reload his larboard battery, or would he come about again and bring the starboard to bear? If the former, he was gambling on the skill of his gunners; if the latter, on the seamanship of his sailors. Glaring through my glass, I sought a sign of activity on his decks that might show his purpose, but through the cloud of gunsmoke, could see nothing.

      “Shoot…now!”