November 23, 1718 - Caribbean Sea
By the time John returned to deck the sun had risen. Most of The Goblin's crew was sleeping off the long night of hard work, and he sorely wished he could join them. He might need to dispose of Vane just so they could all go back to working reasonable hours. Rackham walked to the bow of the sloop, and looked at The Ranger. Even assuming Adresteia was good to her word, if he unleashed her on Vane the pirate's brigantine might not survive the fight, and The Goblin wasn’t big enough to sail with any more men than were on it already. That would be more than a small puzzle to solve. Rackham climbed the ratlines up to the rigging and stretched out in an empty cargo net, deciding that he’d need sleep if he wanted to be sharp.
He was awoken in the early afternoon by the ringing of the alarm bell. He rolled out of the net and swung down to the deck on a loose rope.
“What is it, T.?” John shook off the sleep as best he could.
“A big prize,” the native man pointed to the horizon and passed the spyglass to his captain, “she’s as big as a frigate.”
“She might be a frigate,” Rackham said, “Whose colors is she flying?”
“No one’s,” T. said. “She’s keeping her allegiance to herself.”
John walked over to the bridge’s starboard rail as they ran up alongside The Ranger.
“Robert!” John shouted for Vane’s quartermaster, who ran the ship during the day, “Kick Charles out of his bunk and let’s do this!”
“I can’t do that,” Robert Deal said, “He does not like to be disturbed during the day.”
“Do you have any idea what a ship like that is worth?” John said, “And between us, we have enough men to take it and sail it. Tell Charles if he gets his ass on deck I’ll give him that frigate for his birthday.” John would happily take The Ranger for his own ship and leave The Goblin to T.
Deal looked conflicted. On some level, John felt badly for putting the man in that position. Robert was a bit of a weasel, but he worked hard and was good at his job. “The wind is against us,” Deal finally said.
“We’ll play rabbit,” John shouted, “Stir them up, get them to waste some shot trying to hit us, and then run away with the wind at our backs, leading them back to you.”
“That plan works better in the dark,” Robert pointed out.
“Watch for her to show her colors when we attack her,” John said, “Then raise the like as we come back to you and close on us as if you’d been pursuing us.”
“You think they’ll fall for that?”
“If you throw a few shots before our bow as we approach, I think it’ll confuse them enough for The Ranger to get in a solid first blow.”
It was a plan that placed most of the risk on John’s ship and men on The Ranger's deck were clearly in favor of it, so Deal relented, “Make to, I’ll rouse the captain.” The men on both ships cheered and stamped their feet as The Goblin split away to give chase. If Adresteia was right, Vane would cower in his cabin to avoid the daylight while his men did all the hardwork. That would leave no doubt in the crewmen’s minds that he was unfit to captain The Ranger, and make disposing of him much, much easier.
There were some perks to sailing a smaller ship. The first was that you were less visible. While John could see their quarry, it was fairly unlikely that her men had spotted either The Ranger or The Goblin yet. The second benefit was that you had less inertia and a smaller, simpler sails. If the wind was at your back, that was a bad thing – smaller sails caught less wind, and if the wind died down for a moment, a small ship might quickly become becalmed while a heavier ship would continuing moving for a while. If the wind was against you, though, the same sails that propelled you instead dragged against the wind. The trick was to compromise with the wind, to reach a middle ground, by putting the sails at an angle where they still caught more wind from the back than the front, but kept the ship moving generally in the direction you wanted to go. When you strayed too far off your objective, you'd turn the ship around and sail back the other way, "tacking" in a zig-zag pattern rather than sailing in a straight line.
Since anything that could go wrong generally seemed to do so, a sailor could seldom expect to have the wind on his side. The art of sailing, then, largely revolved around the dynamic geometry involved in tacking, and it was overall easier to make the frequent course changes it required with a light, simple ship like The Goblin.
Sailing with the wind squarely at their backs, a big ship like their quarry could eventually overtake The Goblin, its larger sails gathering more wind and its greater mass maintaining a more consistent speed. However, since the sloop had simpler sails and less momentum, she could change tack more quickly, effectively making her faster against the wind than the bigger ship. Right now, that would allow them to catch up to their quarry quickly, but Rackham knew that it would likely make it difficult to run away. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to run far with The Ranger waiting downwind to ‘intercept’ them.
As they got closer, John got a better look at their quarry's build. She was the sort of ship the South Sea Company ran – that meant she was likely to have some good loot, though the ship would be more than enough reward in itself. The Goblin closed on the company ship, and John was able to read the lettering above the back windows: Indien. John had intended to make a friendly advance before raising his black flag – a smiling skull with two crossed cutlasses – to announce their true intentions, but apparently the Captain of The Indien was not a trusting soul. The colors unfurled from her topmast and revealed that, apparently, whoever the ship had been built by had sold her to the French navy. She was sporting their colors and their guns. The port holes opened to reveal nearly two dozen 12-pounder guns.
“Captain…” T. voiced alarm, “she’s a 40-gun frigate…”
“No,” John assured him, “she’s 44-guns at least.”
“Perhaps we’d do well to run?”
“She’s a fourth rate ship, not even a ship of the line. With the Ranger’s help, we can take her.”
“The Ranger’s a 12-gun brigantine, captain…”
“I’m aware of that T. Fortunately, we don’t have to sink her, just get her close enough for the men on The Ranger to board her.”
They turned The Goblin hard starboard, putting them against the wind but lining them up to fire on The Indien’s stern and placing them well out of her broadside arc.
The Goblin was a single mast ship with a single deck of guns. She wasn’t a sloop-of-war – such brawny little warships wouldn’t see the waves for another two decades – but like most self-respecting pirate ships, the little Jamaican sloop was better armed than she had any right to be. Two 12-pounder guns and one 24-pounder fired on the back end of The Indien with a thundering that shook the small ship down to its bones. Iron balls hammered the wood on The Indien's stern and smashed through the windows of the captain’s cabin. The Indien’s captain would doubtlessly be above deck right now, but the damage would surely annoy him. The men cheered and began to reload.
The Indien turned port to get before the wind so she’d have more speed to work with, but The Goblin shadowed her, staying on her aft as best it could. Unfortunately, the more The Indien turned before the wind the faster she turned, and as The Goblin arced around her into the wind, it lost considerable speed. When The Indien fired her port guns, the nearest ones managed to get a piece of The Goblin, punching a whole in the gaff sail and splintering the deck behind John. That was certainly too close for comfort, and it was about to get closer. The Indien was between them and The Ranger, and for John's plan to work she needed to be chasing them to The Ranger. That meant they’d have to pass her somehow, and unless the captain was stupid enough to continue turning his ship, that meant facing a broadside.
The Indien arrested its turn, and began to turn back to starboard, zig-zagging in the hopes of intercepting The Goblin with a full broadside. Fortunately, with the wind now at their backs, John had more options. Even with its sails full, the ship could turn much faster than The Indien, so he corrected course hard port to sail around The Indien’s port side. He prayed that the guns on her port would be slow reloading, but didn’t bank on it. He steered The Goblin right up against The Indien’s port hull and shouted for a point-blank barrage from the three starboard guns. The guns hammered The Indien at close range, the 24 pounder outright cracking the hull.
The Indien fired back, unloading all 22 port guns in a frantic attempt to sink them. It was a bad position for The Indien to be in, though. The naval guns on big ships are mounted for firing at targets far away. Their barrels were tipped upwards by default, and John had rushed them enough they hadn’t had time to both reload and drop their barrels to fire on a close target. Moreover, the guns were all but static, laterally, so even at long range it would be hard to train all 22 on a target the size of the sloop – at point blank range, it was impossible.
For The Goblin, this was salvation – the majority of the 22 shots missed The Goblin, either streaking well above her deck, past her bow, or behind her stern. Only the eight guns closest to the waterline were low enough to possibly hit, and two of them missed – one firing ahead of The Goblin’s bow and one astern. Unfortunately, the six 12-pound iron balls that connected were devastating. Two of the Goblin’s starboard guns were destroyed, with several men ripped apart by the projectiles or the shrapnel, one ball punched a hole in the main sail, and another ball glanced the mast, cracking it.
Fighting would no longer be a realistic possibility, so John ordered the gun stations unmanned, their crews tasked with carrying the wounded below deck and throwing the dead overboard to lighten the sloop. The hole in the sail would cost them speed, but they couldn’t stop to re-rig it properly, so the crew pulled out a replacement sail and cast it over the damaged sail. It was awkward, but they needed as much speed as possible to escape.
The Indien again arrested its turn and steered back towards them, trying to sideswipe them, but even damaged The Goblin accelerated too quickly for The Indien to catch that way. The little sloop streaked away from the French frigate. The frigate could ultimately catch them over a distance, but the sloop just needed to outrun them long enough to reach The Ranger; Vane’s brigantine would be fresh and ready to carry the fight.
At least, it would have been if she hadn’t been sailing the wrong direction.
NEXT =>
Sailing with the wind squarely at their backs, a big ship like their quarry could eventually overtake The Goblin, its larger sails gathering more wind and its greater mass maintaining a more consistent speed. However, since the sloop had simpler sails and less momentum, she could change tack more quickly, effectively making her faster against the wind than the bigger ship. Right now, that would allow them to catch up to their quarry quickly, but Rackham knew that it would likely make it difficult to run away. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to run far with The Ranger waiting downwind to ‘intercept’ them.
As they got closer, John got a better look at their quarry's build. She was the sort of ship the South Sea Company ran – that meant she was likely to have some good loot, though the ship would be more than enough reward in itself. The Goblin closed on the company ship, and John was able to read the lettering above the back windows: Indien. John had intended to make a friendly advance before raising his black flag – a smiling skull with two crossed cutlasses – to announce their true intentions, but apparently the Captain of The Indien was not a trusting soul. The colors unfurled from her topmast and revealed that, apparently, whoever the ship had been built by had sold her to the French navy. She was sporting their colors and their guns. The port holes opened to reveal nearly two dozen 12-pounder guns.
“Captain…” T. voiced alarm, “she’s a 40-gun frigate…”
“No,” John assured him, “she’s 44-guns at least.”
“Perhaps we’d do well to run?”
“She’s a fourth rate ship, not even a ship of the line. With the Ranger’s help, we can take her.”
“The Ranger’s a 12-gun brigantine, captain…”
“I’m aware of that T. Fortunately, we don’t have to sink her, just get her close enough for the men on The Ranger to board her.”
They turned The Goblin hard starboard, putting them against the wind but lining them up to fire on The Indien’s stern and placing them well out of her broadside arc.
The Goblin was a single mast ship with a single deck of guns. She wasn’t a sloop-of-war – such brawny little warships wouldn’t see the waves for another two decades – but like most self-respecting pirate ships, the little Jamaican sloop was better armed than she had any right to be. Two 12-pounder guns and one 24-pounder fired on the back end of The Indien with a thundering that shook the small ship down to its bones. Iron balls hammered the wood on The Indien's stern and smashed through the windows of the captain’s cabin. The Indien’s captain would doubtlessly be above deck right now, but the damage would surely annoy him. The men cheered and began to reload.
The Indien turned port to get before the wind so she’d have more speed to work with, but The Goblin shadowed her, staying on her aft as best it could. Unfortunately, the more The Indien turned before the wind the faster she turned, and as The Goblin arced around her into the wind, it lost considerable speed. When The Indien fired her port guns, the nearest ones managed to get a piece of The Goblin, punching a whole in the gaff sail and splintering the deck behind John. That was certainly too close for comfort, and it was about to get closer. The Indien was between them and The Ranger, and for John's plan to work she needed to be chasing them to The Ranger. That meant they’d have to pass her somehow, and unless the captain was stupid enough to continue turning his ship, that meant facing a broadside.
The Indien arrested its turn, and began to turn back to starboard, zig-zagging in the hopes of intercepting The Goblin with a full broadside. Fortunately, with the wind now at their backs, John had more options. Even with its sails full, the ship could turn much faster than The Indien, so he corrected course hard port to sail around The Indien’s port side. He prayed that the guns on her port would be slow reloading, but didn’t bank on it. He steered The Goblin right up against The Indien’s port hull and shouted for a point-blank barrage from the three starboard guns. The guns hammered The Indien at close range, the 24 pounder outright cracking the hull.
The Indien fired back, unloading all 22 port guns in a frantic attempt to sink them. It was a bad position for The Indien to be in, though. The naval guns on big ships are mounted for firing at targets far away. Their barrels were tipped upwards by default, and John had rushed them enough they hadn’t had time to both reload and drop their barrels to fire on a close target. Moreover, the guns were all but static, laterally, so even at long range it would be hard to train all 22 on a target the size of the sloop – at point blank range, it was impossible.
For The Goblin, this was salvation – the majority of the 22 shots missed The Goblin, either streaking well above her deck, past her bow, or behind her stern. Only the eight guns closest to the waterline were low enough to possibly hit, and two of them missed – one firing ahead of The Goblin’s bow and one astern. Unfortunately, the six 12-pound iron balls that connected were devastating. Two of the Goblin’s starboard guns were destroyed, with several men ripped apart by the projectiles or the shrapnel, one ball punched a hole in the main sail, and another ball glanced the mast, cracking it.
Fighting would no longer be a realistic possibility, so John ordered the gun stations unmanned, their crews tasked with carrying the wounded below deck and throwing the dead overboard to lighten the sloop. The hole in the sail would cost them speed, but they couldn’t stop to re-rig it properly, so the crew pulled out a replacement sail and cast it over the damaged sail. It was awkward, but they needed as much speed as possible to escape.
The Indien again arrested its turn and steered back towards them, trying to sideswipe them, but even damaged The Goblin accelerated too quickly for The Indien to catch that way. The little sloop streaked away from the French frigate. The frigate could ultimately catch them over a distance, but the sloop just needed to outrun them long enough to reach The Ranger; Vane’s brigantine would be fresh and ready to carry the fight.
At least, it would have been if she hadn’t been sailing the wrong direction.
NEXT =>
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