Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

We were headed up the Jamaica Channel with the wind south-southwest, about as good a wind as you can get for that course. When we rounded Lady Marie Cape, there she was. She could not have held the wind close enough to head straight for us, but she did not want to do that anyhow. She went for the place where we were going to be, holding as close as she could with all plain sail set.

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 Lucia, 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 Lucia 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 Lucia 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 Lucia 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 Gonave 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.