The Scourge - Pirates & Privateers

Chapter 22: Hellfire

'Get those sails into the wind!' Schleckt cried. 'We need all the speed we can muster!'

'All sail!' Jennes and Jacobi echoed.

'All hands to the rigging!' Schleckt whipped the crew into a frenzy. 'Our lives depend on it!'

'Martin,' Emily took his wrist with a trembling hand. 'Look how close they are.' Martin looked over his shoulder and took note of the distance between the ships getting narrower.

It was now only a matter of yards. They were so close that he could make out the smug grin pasted across Toros' face.

'They're going to kill us, aren't they?' she whimpered. 'They're going to kill all of us and it's all my fault.'

'Emily!' Martin took her head in his hands. That seemed to stem the flow of her tears. 'Emily, listen. They're not going to kill us. I'm not going to let them. You're going to be alright. Everything is going to be alright; I promise,' he lied.

Emily nodded and dashed at her tears, helped by the kiss he planted on her brow, before he turned back to the helm.

'Schleckt, how are we doing for speed?'

'We're doing nine knots, but there's no more sail to give.'

'Why aren't we going faster, then?' Martin's heart seized. 'I thought Jennes said this would go like the Devil.'

'It should; Damned fool slavers,' Schleckt said. 'These ones are the skittish type, obviously. Bloody morons sacrificed speed for heavier guns. These things must weigh more than the ship.'

Martin's chest lightened as he found a glimmer of hope.

'What did you say?'

'I said the bloody idiots decided to put heavier cannons onto a ship that can't-.'

'How heavy?'

'They're twenty-four pounders.' Schleckt furrowed his brow. 'Why is that-?' Then his eyes brightened with realisation, and a smirk crept over his lips. 'Of course.'

'I knew you'd catch on,' Martin shared his smirk. 'Get Ulrich's crews on the starboard guns.'

'Aye, I'll give him the order.'

'Jennes!'

'Aye?'

'Drop the starboard anchor on my mark.'

'You what?!' Jennes exclaimed. 'Are you insane?!'

'Just trust me.'

Jennes hesitated, then nodded solemnly and turned on his heel.

'You're gonna want to cover your ears for this.'

Martin's terrible grin, malicious like Captain Percival's, sent a shiver down Emily's spine, and she cupped her hands over the sides of her head.

'Guns ready!' Ulrich shouted.

'Guns ready, Hamish!' Schleckt relayed.

'Everyone, hold fast!' Martin coiled himself up and then threw the wheel to starboard.

The ship cut through the waves and began to turn.

'Jennes, now!'

Together, Jennes and Jacobi kicked the chock from the capstan and let it tick loose. The anchor thudded beneath them, then scraped across the hard rock of the sea floor. Suddenly, it bit into the softer earth. The rope snapped taut. The ship listed. As her stern turned to port, she barely made a sound, then settled with her broadside face-on to the Terror's bow.

Martin took a deep breath, and with all the power he could muster, cried his order.

'Open fire!'

Toros' grin dropped to the floor like a mask, leaving behind an expression, first of bewilderment, then of sheer terror as the eyes of the twenty long twenty-fours burst from the broadside gunports.

'Fire!' Schleckt echoed.

'Fire all!' Ulrich screamed.

The sky ruptured as the guns spat and roared like dragons. Immense stars of hot metal screamed across the air and tore into the Terror's hull as if it were made of straw. From bow to stern, the cannonballs raked the crew from the weather deck and into the sea, and shredded the men below with shot and splinter. A heavy smoke descended on the water. By the time it began to clear, the Terror slowed to a crawl. Her bow dipped low in the waves, her sails flapped loose in the wind, yet she still limped onwards, trying to turn to port to engage.

Martin spotted it.

'They're coming about! Don't give them the chance!'

'Open fire!' Ulrich cried again.

The gunports opened and the broadside screamed another volley, this time of grape and chain shot. The pellets drove themselves like nails into the wood and tore the men in the open limb from limb. The chains soared with such incredible speed and power that they snapped the rigging and drove themselves into the main mast, which snapped in two.

The gunning crews cheered at the top of their lungs and those on the weather deck jeering their oaths at the Terror, before their elation was once again cut short.

The mast of the Spanish brig creaked and moaned as it toppled over before it toppled over, and landed squarely on the Señora's deck.

The two ships were locked together.

There was definitely no escape now.