Pirate Freedom (29 page)

When I say now that we tacked east, it sounds like I wanted to commit suicide, I know. I did not, and I will explain what I was doing in a minute. While we were tacking, I made signal to Rombeau on the
Magdelena
: SPLIT. MEET TORTUGA.

He acknowledged and held his course north, which was what I wanted.

Here is how I was thinking. First off, by going east I was going straight for the galleon like it sounds. I was heading between the galleon and the north coast of the Tiburon Peninsula. It meant I was going to have to pass in front of her broadside, sure. But she was heeling quite a bit, and I could see that she was not going to bring those guns to bear. Second, that end of the island was still French from what I had heard in Port Royal. I figured a Spanish galleon was not going to want to get too close to shore. Third, with us hugging the shore, the range was going to be long. And we were fast.

From all that, it ought to be clear I was figuring the galleon would go for the
Magdelena
. She was on course for her already, for one thing, and for another the
Magdelena
was bigger. When she did, I was going to come up behind her and cross her stern. It would mean coming under the fire of her stern chasers, sure. They would be twelve-pounders or about that, and there
would probably be two (though there could be four). But while they were shooting at us—probably one shot from each gun—we would be raking her stern with our broadside. If we could not disable her rudder like that, it would be mighty poor shooting and we would try again.

I have gone into all this detail because I still think what I did was logical and good tactics. The problem was that the captain of the galleon was not on the same page. She turned into the wind a lot faster and handier than I would have expected from a ship that size and came after us. What she wanted, of course, was to come alongside us. With thirty guns a side in her main battery, she would have blown us out of the water. All we wanted was to get away.

We were fast, and that was good. But after a bit of racing along and gaining a bit on the galleon if anything, it hit me that all we were really doing was racing for the armpit of Hispaniola, where the land makes a hairpin turn to run northwest. That was where Port-au-Prince was, and there were sure to be shore batteries. If we were lucky, they might protect us. If we were not, they would probably sink us.

What looked practically certain was that once we got under the protection of those shore batteries we would not get out again until they said so, if they ever did. A good big bribe might do it—one that would leave us flat.

We would not
have
to make port there, though. Not unless we wanted to. We could turn north and try to slide past the galleon instead. I figured we would have about one chance in ten.

Up ahead I could see Big Cayemite Island, the little shallow channel between it and the coast, and a finger of land beyond it that would force us to turn north. That looked like a very, very big break to me just then, and I decided to go for it. If the galley followed us in there, she would have to drop back, and there was a good chance she would run aground. That is what I was hoping would happen. If she passed Big Cayemite on the north—which is what she did—I had another plan.

There are no brakes on a ship like my dear quick and slick old slider, but there are ways to stop pretty fast, and we used two of them. As soon as the galleon was out of sight behind Big Cayemite, we loosed the sheets, which spilled the wind from our sails, and we put the rudder over hard.

I think most of the crew thought I had gone crazy, but that is what we did.

If
Castillo Blanco
had been a speedboat with a nice big engine, I would
have done a one-eighty and come out the way we went in. With the wind the way it was, there was no way. We would have had to tack, two steps forward and one back. It would have been too slow, and there was no room for it anyway.

What we did instead was sail east again, exactly like we had been going before, then gybe and head hard north so as to come up behind the galleon as she stood out to clear that finger of land. The bad part was that it was not the perfect crossing of her stern I had visualized. We came up at a slant, so our shots were more quartering than raking, and the range was five hundred yards or so.

The upshot—and it was up, we had to elevate our guns as much as we could—was that out of five shots we got three hits and two misses, and the galleon's rudder was not touched. She fired her broadside at us as we made north, too; but by the time her captain got her swung 'round for that, the range was a lot longer. If any of those shots made it as far as we were, they did not come close. We saw an awful lot of splashes, and my guess is that none did.

I was watching her through my glass, looking for hits—you can imagine. Praying for hits was more like it. I saw three, as I just wrote. I also saw all the gilding and carving on her stern, and she was the
Santa Lucía
, the same galleon that had crossed the Atlantic with us when I was on the
Santa Charita
.

After that it was a straight chase up the west coast of Hispaniola. The
Santa Lucía
had a couple bow chasers, and banged away with them. I would guess they were long twelves, or about that. When our stern chaser fired the first time, I was so busy trying to get a little more speed that I had practically forgotten about it. I watched the bow of the
Santa Lucía
through my glass for the next shot and the one after that, and the first hit right at the waterline. The next hit on her foredeck somewhere—I saw the splinters fly.

It was mighty good shooting, and I felt like I ought to run down and give the gun crew a pat on the back. Down I went, and guess who was aiming the gun and touching it off?

It was Novia, and that was when it really hit me that if something happened to me, she would be the new captain. The men swabbed the bore, loaded the new charge and the new ball, and ran the gun out again. She sighted the gun and fired it. I did not see where that shot went, but I saw the men cheer and heard her yell, "That's the way, my braves!"

When they were swabbing the bore for the next shot, I just backed out of
the cabin and went up on the quarterdeck again. She was taking care of things down there as well as I could have or better. Anything I said or did was a lot more likely to hurt that operation than help it.

Right here is where there ought to be a desperate sea fight, with the
Castillo Blanco
slugging it out muzzle-to-muzzle with the
Santa Lucía
and me leading a little party of desperate men from our sinking hamburger stand onto the Spanish galleon. I would have a knife in my teeth, but I would shout something thrilling anyway.

Well, sorry. I am writing the truth here, and that is not how it was. We ran north into the Gulf of Gonâve with the galleon in hot pursuit. She lost her bowsprit, and when one of Novia's shots broke her foremast main yard, the Spanish gave up. Rombeau had circled around with the idea of coming up behind her, but by the time
Magdelena
came into sight it was all over.

Here I ought to say something about shooting big guns at sea. It is a whole lot worse than shooting wild cattle with a musket. On land, you can generally steady your musket on a tree or a rock, or lay the barrel in a forked stick you carry. There is no way to steady a big gun at sea.

What is almost as bad is that you cannot be looking through the sights when the gun fires. The recoil would kill you.

Here is what you have to do. First you notice how much the ship is rolling or pitching—most of the time. (Every so often a big one will fool you.) Then you aim the gun. The best aim is to have the base of the enemy's mast in your sights at the top of the roll or pitch. You jump out of the way and grab the slow match. You stick the burning end in the touchhole, timing it so the muzzle will be as high as it is going to go when the gun fires. It will take a quarter of a second or so for your gun to fire after you touch it off.

There is a lot of luck involved. There is also a lot of skill, particularly in knowing the roll or pitch and knowing just how long it will be before the gun fires. A pretty bad shot may get lucky. It is bound to happen now and then. But in the long run, a good shot will beat a bad one hands down.

What I did was to say a Hail Mary, starting at the bottom of a roll or pitch, and notice where the top came, then touch off the gun one word before that. I do not know what Novia did. I only know it worked for her.

THE LAST TIME
I had seen Tortuga I had been paddling a piragua. Now I was captain of the most beautiful pirate ship anybody ever saw, and I had another one, bigger and good-looking too, with her captain under me. It made a lot of difference—the skipper of the
Castillo Blanco
was a heck of a lot more worried than the guy paddling the piragua had been, and had a heck of a lot more things to worry about.

"That's Turtle Island," I told Novia. "See the shape?"

She nodded, still studying it through my glass, then looked up at the gold-and-white French flag we were flying. "They will not shoot at us?"

"Good on you," I said, "you spotted the batteries. So did I. We won't come in range. Rombeau and I are going ashore in
Magdelena
's gig."

"You are no more French than me, Crisóforo. Send Bouton."

I told her I could pass, and I wanted to see those batteries for myself.

When Melind and I had left Tortuga, there had been no shore batteries
and the town had been shot up by the Spanish. The town was back now, still shacks mostly but with wider and straighter streets, and not all shacks.

The shore battery Rombeau and I went to had five long guns, probably twenty-pounders, with a furnace for heating shot. There was a stockade to protect the gun crew. We saluted the officer in charge and told him we were law-abiding traders who just wanted to go into the harbor to do a little business.

He winked and asked if we were selling cannon—he noticed we had quite a few gunports. I explained that we had them to fight off the accursed Spanish and said I felt sure there was a small fee to be paid by each ship going into the harbor. We would be glad to pay it. How much? After that we talked about money for a while, Rombeau and I finally getting him down close to half.

We had no sooner tied up at a wharf than a soldier came with a letter saying the governor of the island wanted to parlay with both captains that afternoon.

M. Bertrand d'Ogeron was one of the biggest men I have ever seen. He was fat, sure, but he was tall, too, and there was lots of muscle under the fat. The funny thing about him was that he looked stupid, with his big, wide, fat face and little nose and mouth. Then too, he had a trick of opening his eyes wide that made him look like a real idiot. About the third time he did it, I caught on. He was hoping we would say something stupid he could use if we stuck to our story about being honest merchants. As for him, he was about as dumb as the weather glass.

"You have wine, yes? Good wine from France? I would like a lot."

No, we said, we did not have any.

"A pity, Monsieurs. Oh, a great pity! One cannot get good wine here. Rum. Rum is not wine." He looked like he was about to cry, and shook his head.

We agreed and said we just wanted to buy supplies, and maybe sign up a few sailors who needed work.

"No wine?"

"None." We shook our heads, both of us.

"At home, my mother—oh, my poor mother!—would set before me the best food in Provence, and the best wine." He sighed hard enough to fill the mainsail. "They say she is dead. This I do not believe. My poor mother, my poor, old mother. Dead. She? It cannot be! Think you she is dead, Monsieurs?"

We said it seemed pretty unlikely and brought up the sailors again.

"Honest sailors, Monsieurs? You neglected to say honest sailors." Here he gave us the idiot stare. "You neglected to say it, but you would not want men who would filch your goods. No, no!"

I said, "We need men so badly we'd take any kind, Your Excellency."

"Pirates? You would not accept pirates, surely?"

"They may wish to reform, Your Excellency. We need men very badly." I shrugged. "You comprehend, I'm sure."

"French pirates." He nodded and looked pleased. "Good honest Frenchmen, such as we ourselves are."

Rombeau said, "Any kind. I'd soon teach them how to talk."