Scarlett

by Christopher C Tubbs

  They found their way to a more respectable establishment overlooking Thames Street and the main harbour where there were several ships with strange flags flying. There was a flamboyantly dressed man who looked about thirty years old on the next table with a gold embroidered jacket, long, curly, dark hair, and an elaborately waxed moustache and beard.

  “Pray tell, do you know the meaning of those flags?” Scarlett asked him.

  “Aye, I do, but none are mine,” he replied with a broad Welsh accent. “They be the personal flags o’ the captains of the ships. Mine’s the flag of Britain.”

  “Really? They must be quite terrifying,” Scarlett simpered, fluttering her eye lashes at him, causing Françoise to cough to hide a laugh. The man wasn’t fooled as he took in her weapons and the way she handled herself as she sat down.

  “You’re new here,” he stated, “you came in at the head of eight ships.”

  “How very observant,” Scarlett said, dropping the act.

  “I am Henry Morgan; Privateer under Sir Christopher Mings. I make it my business to know who I am competing with.”

  “I am Scarlett Browning; Captain and owner of the Fox and Merlin. This is Françoise le Coq, master of the Merlin. Both under letter of Marque”

  Morgan laughed and said,

  “It won’t be long before your known as the Scarlet Fox with your hair! That would make a good flag.”

  That gave Scarlett something to think about.

  They chatted for a while, and Morgan told her that there weren’t many privateers and those there were operated mainly from Jamaica. There were a large number of Buccaneers operating from the islands of Tortuga and Espanola. They weren’t as well equipped as the privateers but made up for that by being downright vicious.

  Another well-dressed man walked up to the table, and Morgan stood as he approached. Scarlett and Françoise followed suit.

  “May I introduce Commander Sir Christopher Mings,” Morgan announced with a bow.

  Scarlett introduced herself and Françoise, and they were invited to share a table. Drinks and food were ordered, as it was lunchtime.

  “Are you French, Sir?” Mings asked Françoise.

  “No, I am from the Island of Jersey. My father is English and my mother is French.”

  “And you, Miss, from your accent I would guess you are from Yorkshire?”

  “Aye, I am that,” Scarlett confirmed.

  “Am I to understand that you are in command?” Mings asked incredulously.

  Scarlett sighed inwardly and replied,

  “I am and also the registered owner of both.”

  “A stunning achievement for one so young.” Mings smiled condescendingly.

  Morgan rose to her defence,

  “Scarlett brought in six prizes this morning all full of valuable cargo taken from under the Spaniard’s noses off of Espanola.”

  Mings raised an eyebrow at that and could be seen to have a rethink of his opinion.

  “What ships do you have again?”

  “The Fox, a Caravel, and the Merlin, a Ketch. Both fully gunned and manned and holding letters of marque.”

  The food was served and over dinner Mings, they found, was the commander of the Jamaica station and had a history of buccaneering in the region that went back 15 years.

  “My policy is to give freelance privateers and buccaneers cart blanch to attack any Spanish holding in any way you see fit. At some time, I plan to raid their towns on the mainland myself with a fleet made up of independent ships.”

  “Interesting,” Scarlett observed. “Such a fleet could not be linked to the British government but would serve to undermine the Spanish trade.”

  Mings looked surprised and smiled,

  “You are very perceptive and politically astute for one of such tender years.”

  Scarlett resisted the temptation to shoot him in the face.

  Thursday came and the auction of their booty was at hand. It was offloaded at the docks and inventoried carefully before being moved to a warehouse belonging to Malakai. Samples were laid out at the auction that was held in the open at New Yard. Prospective buyers wandered up and down the rows of goods that had lot numbers displayed in front of them. Working out what they wanted to pay and eyeing up the opposition.

  Bidding was brisk, and the goods sold rapidly. Scarlett had trouble keeping up to start with, but she soon got the hang of it. Their goods were sold off in twenty lots, the exotic woods getting a good price, and she calculated that they made two thousand, one hundred, and forty-two pounds, fifteen shilling, and sixpence. More than enough to fund their next voyage and to pay the men a goodly sum.

  She had some shopping to do and after the meal was over, she went her own way. Françoise returned to the Merlin and cautioned her to take care. She was walking down New Street when she was approached by a trio of Rough looking sailors who obviously had a liquid lunch.

  She tried to ignore them but as they passed, one jumped forward and grabbed her, pinning her arms to her side. A second moved in front of her and bent to grab her legs.

  Scarlett’s knee came up hard and fast and connected with his nose mashing it to pulp, as he stood up with a howl. She used the man holding her for support and kicked out with both feet, hitting him in the stomach and doubling him up. The impact of the kick pushed her and the man holding her backwards, his heel caught on a cobble, and he fell with Scarlett on top of him. He held on and the third man came into her line of sight holding a long knife.

  “Gut the bitch!” yelled the man from below her. She slammed her head backwards into his face and heard the crack of something breaking. He didn’t let go.

  The man with the knife grinned and stepped around her so she couldn’t kick him and started to bend over her with the knife pointing at her belly.

  She screamed and struggled.

  “Hold still, girlie,” he swore, and the knife pulled back for a strike.

  Suddenly, his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell to the side. A sword blade appeared and prodded the man beneath her in the side.

  “Let her go. There’s a good chap,” the familiar voice of Henry Morgan said softly.

  The arms around her loosened and she rolled on to her feet. She spun and kicked the prone man in the ribs as hard as she could. Her sword was half out when a firm hand on her wrist restrained her.

  “There is a time and a place, and this is neither,” Henry Morgan said softly.

  Scarlett looked around and saw that a crowd had gathered to watch the fun. She nodded. As they started to move away, she kicked the man with the broken nose in the kidneys.

  “Feel better now?” Henry laughed as they walked away. “You know you should never walk around this town on your own, no matter how good you are with a sword,” he added.

  Scarlett stopped and turned to look him in the eye.

  “Were you following me?”

  Henry laughed again.

  “No, I just happened to be coming down the street and saw your predicament.”

  They came up on the shop that Scarlett had been aiming for all along.

  “I need to place an order,” she told him and stepped inside, leaving him on the street.

  She came out twenty minutes later to find him chatting to Steven and Daniel, who wore cutlasses and had concerned looks on their faces.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I sent for them. They brought him as well,” Henry replied and nodded to someone who stood behind her.

  Scarlett swivelled to look over her shoulder and saw Montoya. The Carib was armed with a large knife hanging on his left hip and a tomahawk on his right. He wore trousers but was otherwise shirtless, his muscles and tattoos on show.

  “He is going to be your bodyguard,” Steven told her, “he found out that you had been attacked and insisted on coming along.”

  “Nobody will touch you with him at your back,” Morgan added with a smile, “he’s fearsome.”

  Scarlett looked at each of th
e men in turn and knew that even if she refused, they would just have Montoya follow her.

  Back on the Fox, Scarlett reflected that Montoya had indeed kept people at bay. He didn’t say anything, his mere presence was enough and had even caused an over enthusiastic shop keeper, who was about to lay a hand on her, to back off. She taught him her name and a few words; shop, man, woman, captain, knife, sword, and found him a quick learner.

  She visited an armourer and found a five-inch culverin for sale. It had a twelve-foot-long barrel, weighed in at four-thousand pounds, and could throw a fourteen-pound nine ounce shot around fifteen-hundred feet fairly accurately. It was mounted on a naval carriage and was now being installed in the bow of the Fox by an enthusiastic gunner, harassed carpenter and sceptical first mate.

  They shifted two of their demi-culverins further back to maintain the trim, placing them on the quarterdeck. Scarlett thought the loss of space was worth it as was the week’s worth of work to install it.

  Captain Morgan paid a visit to see their ships first-hand and looked at the new gun thoughtfully.

  “Did you have to strengthen the deck?” he enquired as they examined the lashings and ringbolts that were installed.

  “Yes, we beefed up the beams and knees and reinforced the planking to cope with the recoil. We don’t need it ripping the ship to pieces beneath us when we fire it,” Steven told him.

  “We can fire on ships before we get alongside,” Scarlett added then realised she just stated the obvious.

  “Yes, I can see that. I just wonder why no one has done it before,” Henry replied with no hint she had been a little girlish. “You are ready to sail?” he asked, looking around the deck.

  “We will leave in the morning,” Scarlett replied.

  “Then would you and your fellow captain do me the honour of joining me for dinner at the Mermaid this evening?”

  Scarlett looked over her shoulder to where Montoya stood watching.

  “You can bring your bodyguard as well,” he chortled at her concerned expression.

  “He takes his responsibilities seriously is all,” she replied defensively.

  “Yes, so I have heard. He is the subject of much speculation around the town and you, my dear, are becoming notorious because of it,” Henry laughed and held up a hand as she was about to protest. “It is doing your reputation no harm at all. Did you know the three men who attacked you have mysteriously turned up dead, their throats cut, and ears cut off?” He looked at Montoya, who just looked back with no expression at all.

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that,” Scarlett responded, “but I wish it were me that did it.”

  Henry laughed and made his way to the gangway. “See you at half past seven for dinner!” he called in farewell.

  Chapter 9: No Quarter

  “December in the Caribbean isn’t so bad,” Scarlett observed as they cruised South towards the coast of Honduras. The wind was steady from the Northeast, light clouds streamed across the sky and life felt good.

  “No, if we were just cruising for our health, it would be perfect,” Steven replied sourly; he had been in a bad mood since they left Port Royal.

  “Oh, don’t be such a grumpy bastard,” Scarlett scolded him.

  “What’s got your tail feathers so out of line?”

  Steven didn’t reply, just scowled at the horizon.

  “Was it something to do with Henry Morgan?” she asked intuitively.

  Steven’s scowl deepened and he growled,

  “I don’t trust him; he be a king’s man.”

  “He’s out here to make money, just like us. What’s wrong with that?”

  “I just get the feeling not to trust him, that’s all.”

  Further discussion was curtailed by a hail from the lookout,

  “SAIL HO, OFF THE STARBOARD SIDE.”

  “Two points to starboard,” Steven instructed the helmsman. “Let’s see who it is,” he said to Scarlett.

  They closed the distance between the two ships until it was hull up to the lookout.

  “It’s a Spanish Carrack heading due West,” he reported.

  The master came on deck and laid out a chart.

  “We are around here about ninety miles off the Panama coast,” he indicated a point on the chart, “if he is heading due West, my guess is he is heading for Cartagena.”

  “Where from, I wonder?” Scarlett asked, thinking out loud.

  “Only one way to find out,” Steven replied with a grin.

  “Go and ask him!” they said together and laughed.

  “Set a course to intercept,” Steven ordered. Scarlett went to get her battle face on and to retrieve the package that was delivered while in port.

  When she returned to the deck, they had closed the gap so she could see the ship from the quarterdeck. They were still about two miles behind though and out of range of their new gun. Their prey wasn’t feeling cooperative either and had piled on as much sail as they could, probably hoping the stern chase would be long enough for them to reach safety. What they couldn’t know was that as soon as the Fox got to within fifteen hundred feet, they would come under fire.

  The Merlin being a faster ship, had edged ahead and was ranging out to windward to try and get her guns to bear. Françoise was squeezing every last knot out of her.

  It was another two and a half hours before Daniel estimated they were in range by taking the angle to the top of the Carrack’s mast with his quadrant.

  Simon Rowell, the gunner, attached his own quadrant to the gun’s barrel and set the elevation, then adjusted the aim by commanding the crew to lever it around using handspikes. Satisfied, he poured priming powder into the touchhole after pricking through the cartridge with the pin. A gunner’s mate placed his gloved hand over the touchhole to prevent an inadvertent firing. He looked down the barrel one last time to make sure the aim was still good, stepped to the side, and lowered a burning slow match attached to the end of a linstock to the powder as the mate stepped away.

  The gun fired with a satisfying boom, gout of fire, and plume of smoke. From the quarterdeck, they could see the black dot that was the ball arc away towards the Carrack. It splashed down about a cable short and off to the side.

  “Run it up,” Scarlett told the hand and handed him the folded flag that she took from the package.

  The flag unfurled. It was black and as it streamed out to larboard in the wind, everyone could see it had the silhouette of a snarling fox’s head with crossed swords behind it embroidered in white.

  “Pretty,” Steven observed.

  “Recognizable,” Scarlett responded.

  The bow gun was reloaded, it took three minutes, and the gunner adjusted the aim again. This time, the ball flew straight at the target, passed over their deck, punching holes in their mizzen and main sails. The air pressure on the mizzen did the rest, and it tore from top to bottom, slowing the Carrack down allowing the Merlin to pull up alongside.

  Françoise ordered the guns run out, but the Spaniards had enough. Their sails fell into disarray and the colours came down.

  “See, I told you it would work,” Scarlett told an even grumpier Steven, who just muttered something and made a show of yelling orders to get them alongside.

  They boarded in force and overwhelmed the frightened crew in no time. Scarlett went straight to the captain, a plainly dressed individual with a hook nose and shifty eyes.

  “What are you carrying?” she asked, her sword point level with his chest.

  “No hablo inglés!” he responded.

  “DAWSON,” Scarlett shouted and jumped when he answered from just behind her left shoulder.

  “He said he don’t speak English,” he spoke to the captain.

  “They are carrying spices, tobacco, and passengers.”

  “Jim, search below. There are passengers on board,” Scarlett called to her bosun.

  Jim returned with a tall, elegantly dressed man, a woman who she assumed was his wife, and two teenage boys dressed al
ike in military uniform. The oldest was around her age and the other a year or so younger.

  “Ask him his name and why they are on this ship.”

  The man refused to answer.

  Scarlett’s eyes narrowed, a sure sign she was annoyed.

  “Give his wife to the men. I’m sure they can amuse themselves with her.”

  Two grinning sailors grabbed her by the arms and started to drag her away. She screamed and struggled, pleading with the man.

  “Wait, please wait,” the man cried in good English. “I am Don Carlos de la Sigña.”

  Scarlett signalled to the men to wait, much to their disappointment.

  “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t give her to the men and throw you and your soldier boys over the side,” Scarlett asked, her sword pointed at his throat.

  “A ransom. I can pay a ransom,” he stuttered.

  Scarlett thought about that. Holding people for ransom hadn’t occurred to her before but now, she could see all sorts of possibilities.

  “You are lucky. If this excuse for a captain had resisted or cost me any of my men, I would have killed you all out of hand. As it is, we can do business.”

  She considered for a moment then said,

  “Your life is worth one thousand pieces of eight. Your wife, five hundred, and the two boys two hundred and fifty each.”

  Don Carlos looked aghast; two thousand pieces of eight was an extremely large amount of money. But then one of the sailors objected to being searched and was summarily thrown over the side by two of Scarlett’s men.

  Scarlett stepped forward and addressed the rest of the Spanish crew,

  “I am the Scarlett Fox. I am merciful to those that cooperate with me. I demand a high price from anyone who opposes or resists me.”

  Dawson translated.

  “Who stood beside that man?” Scarlett asked.

  One of her crew pointed to one of the Spanish sailors.

  “You should have made sure your shipmate cooperated,” she walked across the deck to where the man stood.

  “You have a choice. Join my crew or join your friend over the side.”