They never saw the squall that came up on them from the starboard quarter hitting them amidships, snapping the topmast off like a twig, throwing the men into the sea or down onto the deck where they lay like broken dolls.
Seven of the eight men in that team died. Only one survived, and he sat on the deck wondering what just happened while new men sorted out the mess up above. Steven had seen it all. He didn’t question him just patted him on the shoulder and told him to go below. He looked up; the bird was nowhere to be seen.
For two days, they ran at the mercy of the wind and waves until on the third day the sun rose to a clear horizon, the wind dropped, and the sea started to calm. They took stock, and found they had lost nine men in total. Two were washed overboard and there were the seven that fell from the tops as they hadn’t been able to save any that had fallen in the sea.
The ship was battered but still sound. She worked a bit and was a little wetter than before but once they got the bilges dry. They only had to pump for three hours a day which was almost normal. The lost topmast was replaced by a spare spar that was fished on as a ‘get them home.’
The biggest problem was there was no sign of the Santa Sabina. The last time they saw her she had been trailing them by a quarter mile then had fallen behind until they lost sight of her.
“Do you think she is still ours?” Ray asked Scarlett as he stood next to her on the quarterdeck getting some air.
“I don’t know. While we were near, the Spanish behaved themselves but now, they are out there on their own and they could have taken her back and be on their way to Cuba.”
Ray was quiet for a while then asked,
“Did a pelican really save Paul’s life?”
Scarlett chuckled,
“That’s what the men think.”
“Well you don’t obviously,” Ray replied, catching the amusement in her voice.
“I think it was just there and Paul just happened to be the one who was going up that particular bit of rigging. It doesn’t like him and was probably just being shitty,” Scarlett answered.
“He is really upset. He thinks he has let his shipmates down,” Ray told her. He had had a long talk with his boyhood friend.
“Because he didn’t die with them? That’s bollocks,” Scarlett scoffed.
“No, because he thought he might have saved them,” Ray explained, annoyed by Scarlett’s lack of sympathy.
“We can’t save them all and sometimes have to accept that we will lose some friends along the way,” she sighed and changed the subject.
“Elvira is enjoying a good fly. Looking for dinner, I think.”
It was Ray’s turn to laugh.
“And you doubt Paul has a guardian pelican!”
They sailed just fast enough to maintain steerage while they made repairs, and that also gave the Santa Sabina time to catch up. They were just raising the replacement topmast when the lookout called that there was a sail in sight on the Southern horizon.
“Can you tell what it is?” Steven called up.
“Looks like the Santa. Don’t think they’ve seen us!” called back the lookout.
“Fire a gun please,” Steven asked the gunner who was stood nearby, “and repeat every three minutes.”
The regular thump of the gun set the time and finally the call came,
“He’s turnin’ toward us.”
“Belay the gun” Steven shouted then sent a man to tell the gunner who was a bit deaf.
They maintained their course and speed while the Santa Sabine crept closer.
Scarlett had a feeling and ordered,
“Bring the ship to quarters. Something’s wrong.”
The men rushed to get the ship ready to fight and a silence fell as the other ship closed.
Steven climbed into the ratlines to get a better view and studied the ship with a telescope.
“That’s Bill at the wheel but where is everyone? I can only see a dozen or so men.”
He reported to Scarlett.
“Steer us to come up beside her then get ready to grapnel the ships together. I want a boarding crew ready to go as soon as we are alongside,” Scarlett snapped, now very concerned. “Call the surgeon. Have him ready as well.”
The two ships swung onto a parallel course and closed, the Santa Sabina reducing sail bit by bit and the Fox matching her. They finally hove to and the grapnels flew tying the ships together and the boarding planks dropped into place.
Scarlett crossed in the first wave and stopped dead. The deck was covered in bloodstains and the men looked exhausted, many carrying wounds.
“What the hell happened?” she asked Bill as he limped up to her.
“Can we get the men onto the Fox? There’s only fourteen of us left walking and we are all wounded. There’s twenty more below who need the surgeon,” he pleaded.
“Steven, get a replacement crew on board and get the wounded on to the Fox once the surgeon says they can move,” she ordered, then she took Bill by the arm and led him back over the boarding plank.
She took him to her cabin and served him a big glass of rum mixed with lime juice and sugar.
“When we lost sight of you. We, us and the Spanish, were busy keeping the ship afloat and we all worked well together. We had to, to stay alive.” He took a long swig and slumped back in the chair. “Well, all was well until the storm started to die down then the Spanish tried to take her back led by that first lieutenant. Luckily, we had locked and guarded the weapon store and powder room so they could only get to the weapons we kept on deck. It was a hell of a fight with no quarter on either side. I think they knew if they lost and you caught up with them, they were dead anyway, so they fought like they had nothing to lose.
I must have done for at least half a dozen and the men sold themselves dearly, even the youngsters. I saw one of them with a boarding pike charge a Spaniard and stick him through the gut before another nigh on cut his head off.”
“But you beat them in the end,” Scarlett interrupted.
“Yes, but by then, there were only fifteen including me to sail the ship.”
“Damn me, if you didn’t do well!”
“Aye, the lads worked like Trojans. We never thought we would catch you up and I didn’t have anybody in the tops on lookout. If you hadn’t fired that gun, we would have sailed right past.”
Leaping Fawn came in with a tray of food and put it on the table, took Bills arm, and led him to a chair, making signs he had to eat. As he did, she knelt beside him and undid the dirty bandage he had around his leg and checked the wound.
Scarlett watched her. She looked competent and intent on her task as she cleaned the wound. Bill just ate. It was the first food he had eaten in two days.
The butchers bill was incredible. Every Spaniard was killed, all one hundred and twenty-three of them. Of the sixty-five Foxs; twenty-five were killed, twenty seriously wounded, of which eight would lose limbs, two died before they could be operated on and the other ten would eventually recover. Not one of the other fifteen were unscathed but were fit for light duties.
In Scarlett’s opinion, Bill was absolutely right to offer no quarter. With only fifteen men standing at the end of the fight, they killed all the Spanish wounded and threw all the dead overboard. They had no choice.
She decided after talking to Steven and Ray that the survivors would be given the shares due the dead crew. Now she had to get two ships home with minimum crews, and she was tempted to burn the Santa Sabina, but Bill said bitterly,
“We can’t burn her and have all them men die for nothing.”
They set sail once the Sabina was cleaned up and all the wounded men were comfortably back onboard the Fox. It was time to go home.
Young Ernest was watching the Sabina pull away when three men threw a barrel over the side. It sat low in the water and looked full. The Spanish captain would have to make his own way home.
Chapter 22: Homecoming.
The two ships sailed through the English Channel into th
e North Sea and followed the English coast at a stately pace, unhurried, keeping a cable apart.
It took them over a day to reach their destination and they crept into Baytown on the Yorkshire coast slowly just before dark with no ceremony.
The anchors splashed into the water and the sails flapped as the crew let the wind out of them. There was one other ship in the bay, the Caribbean Queen.
“Dad got home alright!” Scarlett told Ray, who came up as soon as he heard they were almost home.
“How does the Queen look?” Ray asked.
“As if she has been hard used, but she will clean up,” Scarlett observed.
They became aware of shouting coming from the shore and looked towards the town. A horde of people were running towards the shore led by the unmistakable figure of their mother and father and soon, the shore was lined with waving and cheering people.
Smoker and May hugged them both and their Mum cried.
“I was worried we wouldn’t see you again,” Smoker confessed after Scarlett had disentangled herself from her Mother and younger siblings.
“To be honest, it was touch and go there for a time. We lost a lot of men, but can we tell you the story at home?” Scarlett pleaded, desperate to get to the familiarity of the family home.
The townspeople, however, wanted a piece of their local heroes and they had to shake hands and be hugged by everyone that knew them. The two big warships dominated the bay and soon a steady stream of boats were ferrying first the wounded and then the cargo ashore.
Scarlett saw the first of the men come ashore, some still on litters.
“We need to set up somewhere they can be cared for,” she told Smoker.
“There are a couple of empty houses on the north side of town we can take over. I will buy them off the tight-fisted git that owns them. He kicked out the families that couldn’t pay their rent.”
“Won’t he object?” Scarlett asked.
“I will put it in a way he can’t refuse,” Smoker snarled.
He shouted orders to some of his men, and they led the wounded towards what would become a new hospital, a messenger was also sent to the landlord, telling him that Smoker wanted to see him.
They eventually got to the family home and settled into the comfort and warmth of the parlour. Scarlett told the tale of what had happened since the first encounter with the Santa Sabina. Their mother was horrified and thrilled in equal measure. Will and Raif were excited and Will, who was almost eighteen now, insisted that he would accompany her on the next trip.
Her mother asked about the tattoos on her hands and in reply, Scarlett stepped out of the back door and called Elvira, who was above the house flying in a lazy circle on a thermal.
“Oh my good lord!” Her mother squawked and hid behind Smoker as Scarlett entered with Elvira on her arm.
“Don’t worry, she don’t bite,” Ray laughed.
“She do look real fierce though!” Raif exclaimed and then asked, “can I touch her?”
“If you move slowly and don’t surprise her,” Scarlett agreed.
It was no good, but she had to tell the rest of the story about how she had found Elvira. She carefully left out any mention of Spirit quests and the Caribs.
There was a knock at the door and Raif ran to open it. He let out a yelp and staggered back when he saw who was outside.
Montoya, Berko and Emeka stepped inside, filling the room. Her mother and two younger brothers had never seen black men or Caribs and behind them came a dozen men escorting hand carts carrying the treasure chests.
“Bring them in here,” Smoker asked.
The chests were heavy, but the men manoeuvred them in through the door safely.
“We’ve got some work to do to portion out the shares,” Scarlett told them, reaching into her shirt for a pair of keys that she had on a gold chain around her neck. Steven and Daniel stepped into the room and produced keys of their own.
The chests were opened and Oohs and Aaahs went around the family. The gold seemed to light up the whole room.
The house was guarded constantly by thirty of Smoker’s men and another thirty were in the houses nearby in case they were needed. Having all that treasure was one thing, keeping it would be another entirely. Once word got out, and it would as sure as eggs were eggs, someone would try to help themselves.
Scarlett spent time with Steven and Daniel on the way home working out what each crew member was owed, and they had two men making up pouches for three days. In the end, every man’s share was measured out by weight, pouched and labelled.
Smoker took steps of his own to secure the family’s new fortune, which was substantial even after the crown took its share for the letter of marque. In the city of Nottingham, a cloth merchant by the name of Thomas Smith opened a bank, and Smoker was both investing in it and trusting it with the family gold. It was a leap of faith as this was the first provincial bank in England, but it was well set up with a large strong room and its own cadre of security men.
The bullion was transported in a specially made carriage under armed guard by forty men, and they all heaved a huge sigh of relief when it was safely deposited. Life could return to a semblance of normality.
“Will you go back?” May asked Scarlett while sitting behind her, brushing her hair in front of a mirror.
“Oh yes, there is much more to do. I want to buy or start a couple of plantations, set up the shipping company, lots of things.”
“No more privateering?”
“Oh, we will do some of that as well. It’s easy money now we have established ourselves,” Scarlett laughed.
May stopped brushing and turned Scarlett’s head so she could look into her eyes,
“Don’t let that make you hard. I know what you have done, and I don’t judge you, but try and stay a woman.”
Scarlett looked at her and with all sincerity replied,
“Don’t worry, mum. What I do as The Scarlett Fox is her. At home, I’m still the same Scarlett as before.”
“Well make sure that is true,” May replied, “and what about those bodyguards of yours?”
“You think I’m sleeping with them?”
What? No! I was going to say they will scare all the nice boys off!”
Scarlett laughed and turned back so May could carry on brushing.
“I’m not ready to settle down anyway. I’m not twenty yet.”
“Well, don’t leave it too long. You don’t want to end up a spinster.”
“Mum, with my fortune I can take my pick of the men. I just want the right one,”
May looked at her in the mirror and sighed. She could see a hard look in her eyes, she had been hurt and it had affected her. Her little girl was all grown up.
“How long will you stay?” she asked.
“Until the end of the hurricane season. We will want to be back over by the end of November,” Scarlet replied almost purring from the pleasure of having her hair brushed.
“We will have the whole summer together!” May exclaimed, delighted.
Smoker called Scarlett into his office to discuss the future of the family business. He realized that Scarlett was astute, and he didn’t have any prejudices about women staying in their place, he had seen her fight. He also knew she had a keen business brain and had ideas of what they could do.
“Thanks to you, we have the funds to set up legitimate businesses as well as expand the smuggling operations,” he opened the discussion.
“If we play it right, we can clean the smuggled goods through the legitimate businesses and no one will know any the better,” she replied, “and that will give us a big edge over the competition.”
“Right, so a legitimate import and export business based around the shipping company, bringing in goods from the Caribbean…”
“From our own plantations, and purchased legitimately,” Scarlett interjected.
Smoker nodded.
“And in those shipments, we hide high value goods we don’t want the revenue to kn
ow about.”
It was Scarlett’s turn to nod.
“We can meet the luggers offshore and transfer the cargo onto the merchant ships.”
“Exactly.”
“How many ships do you think we need?” she asked.
He looked at her knowing full well she had her own idea about that.
“I was thinking we could start with six?” he suggested, his voice rising in question.
“I was thinking four would be enough. It takes around three months to do a round trip and we can only do it from December to June as any ship that arrives in Jamaica in June or July will be staying there to the end of November. So, if we send a ship every six weeks, we can coordinate the luggers to be coming off the coast of Holland for when they get back.”
“Wont that be a bit hit and miss?
Scarlett thought about it.
“Yes, with the weather we can’t be sure when, or even if, they will get back.”
“The Downs,” said Ray from the doorway.
“What?” replied Smoker and Scarlett together.
“You station the lugger at the Downs. The ship’s captains are instructed to sail close enough to be seen and to sail slowly or even stop over to re-water. That gives the lugger time to sail to Rotterdam pick up the cargo and meet them at a pre-arranged point somewhere closer to Hull where the ships will dock and unload.”
“Who said we would use Hull as our home port?”
Scarlett asked.
“Makes sense. It’s a big port with coasters to distribute the goods down to London or by land across country to Manchester.”
“Why not just land at Liverpool or London?” Scarlett asked.
“Then you wouldn’t be able to hide the goods from Holland, would you?” Ray said smugly.
“You know Dad, we underestimated him,” Scarlett quipped,
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