THE GUN KETCH

Ballard was showing only ten seamen on deck or aloft, what would be expected of a skin-flint Yankee shipmaster, with the others napping below, or resting beside the great-guns. Sarah and Jane mounted only twelve six-pounders, little better than Alacrity's batteries, with two of those disposed in the mates' wardroom below facing aft, or up on the forecastle for chase guns. The rest were spaced out to either beam at every second gun port, so that Sarah and Jane, designed for a stronger armament, sailed en flute, like a piccolo with 'open holes.'

Huge bags of 'white gold' had been hauled up from her holds to line either beam between the guns, piled up three deep to make breastworks on the gun deck, on the sail-tending gangways above, to absorb the expected musketry, and the impact of a pirate-ship's guns. There was a low breastwork around the quarter-deck and fo'c's'le as well, with a final redoubt of bagged salt around the double wheel and binnacle to shelter the helmsmen.

'Dawn for fair, sir,' Midshipman Parham said, looking at his pocket watch. 'And my watch is accurate for once, there's a wonder.'

'Reefs an' breakers t'larboard!' the masthead lookout sang out 'On the 'orizon, sir!'

'That should be about six miles to leeward,' Ballard told mem, muttering half to himself. 'Close enough to prance past Walker's Cay and see what comes out, but not so close that they think we're stupid. Mister Parham, go aloft. You've seen these isles before-from the sea. Tell me which we're closest to, Walker's Cay, Grand Cay or Romer's.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Schooner to loo'rd, sir!' the lookout called suddenly. 'Hull down an' bows on! Two points off the larboard bows!'

'Belay, Mister Parham,' Ballard said, with only a slight twitch of his mouth to indicate any excitement, or notice. 'It no longer matters.' He paced aft to the taffrails, savoring the windward side which was a captain's by right, then back to the railings overlooking Sarah and Jane's waist and gun deck. Hands clasped on his rump, fingers not even twining upon each other, as much as he wished to do so. Arthur Ballard had a firm grip on his emotions, as a man who aspired to the status of gentleman should, as a taciturn, self-controlied Navy man should. He envied Lewrie his boyish lack of control, his ability to enthuse or show anger, sorrow, or frustration so easily, and Lewrie's ability to command and keep the hands' respect even if he did 'let go.' But it was not his style; it was not for him.

So Ballard paced, and the sun rose in the sky as the schooner stood out from the islands, seeming as if to pass ahead of the trading ship in all innocence, and Sarah and Jane kept her course, and her somnolent lack of notice.

'Schooner's crossin' ahead, fine on the bows, an' two mile off!'

'He'll haul his wind, keeping the wind gauge, and fall down upon our starboard side,' Ballard announced as he paused in his pacing near the wheel. 'See, he tacks, as if he's cleared ahead of us.'

'Soon, sir?' Parham inquired, all but wriggling like a puppy on his first hunt in excitement 'Time for Quarters, sir?'

'Calmly, Mister Parham, calmly. You are never to show fear or excitement to the people,' Ballard instructed. 'They're steadier for your being steady.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Parham grimaced, as if his bladder were full, and Ballard were detaining him from dashing forrud to the 'head.'

'Hmm,' Arthur Ballard sighed, peering at the schooner, which was then a point or two off their starboard bows, sailing off sou'easterly, close-hauled. 'I should think now, Mister Parham. Beat to Quarters. But keep them down and out of sight. Lieutenant Pomeroy? Your men To Arms, if you please! On the gun deck, still. Stay away from the gangways until they're close-aboard!'

'Bearin' up, sir!' the lookout announced. 'He's tackin' 'cross the wind to the starboard tack!'

'About three-quarters of a mile off the starboard bows,' Ballard muttered. 'Very nicely done! Even better than wearing off the wind to fall down on us and round up alongside on the same course. Saves sparing hands on the sheets and braces to continually adjust on a rounding course to come close-aboard us, do you see, Mister Parham? That means more men free to serve his guns, and make up a boarding party.'

'I see, sir.'

'And all settled down and ready for it when it comes,' Ballard went on with his praise. 'One may learn a lesson or two, even from a pirate.'

Once tacked to a parallel course with Sarah and Jane, the schooner hauled her wind almost at once and began to fall down on them fast, giving them little warning, and pinning their ship between threatened gunfire and the jagged teeth of the coral reefs to south and west. If they chose to loose sail and run, they couldnot find enough sea-room for an escape, nor could they tack and flee sou'east as long as their foe lay off their starboard bows.

'Panic party, Mister Odrado!' Ballard shouted. Designated men ran to the shrouds to scale them, as if going aloft to cast off reefs and make sail. Others rushed to the gangways for the braces to their squaresails to adjust their angle for a new course, and more speed.

'Hands at Quarters, sir,' Early, the quartermaster's mate, said. 'Guns run out to the portsills, an' port lashings cast off. Swivels loaded, tompions out, an' manned. Larboard gun crews shifted to starboard, an' that Lieutenant Pomeroy is ready to mount his men on the starboard gangway.'

'Very well, Mister Early,' Ballard nodded quickly, then smirked just a trifle. 'I wonder, Mister Early. Do you think they will run up the 'Jolly Roger'? Or is such a convention out of date these days?'

'Well, I don' know, sir, it…' Early began, then paused. 'Ah, that's a little joke, isn't it, Mister Ballard, sir?'

'Aye, Mister Early,' Ballard said with a sober face. 'But a feeble joke. Away with you, now, and stand ready.'

The schooner was sidling up to them quickly, closing the range to about a cable. She was as gaudy as a Spanish royal galley, tricked out with gold leaf on bow and stern, down her upper bulwark rails, and around her entry ports. There had to be at least seventy men in her crew, making Ballard wonder how they got out of each other's way when working the ship. He could espy a larboard battery of five nine-pounder cannon, and at least half a dozen swivel guns on either beam.

'Let's not look too easy,' Ballard called. 'Mister Woods? Do you fire the forrud chase guns! Make it look clumsy!'

One six-pounder fired, raising a splash near the enemy's bows. A moment later, the schooner fired in reply.

'Everybody, down!' Ballard called, though he kept his feet, and his calm composure as the heavy balls droned in. Sarah and Jane leapt and cried in protest as round-shot tore through her thin scantlings and bulged the bulwarks inwards. Bagged salt thumped and tumbled, and some bags burst apart, spilling white crystals about like snow.

'Ahoy, there!' came a call from across the narrowing channel between them. 'Strike yer colours, cut yer braces an' sheets, and let-fly-all, or I'll let ya have another broadside! Gimme no resistance, and you'll still be alive when this is over! Show me fight, though…'

'Let-fly-all, Mister Odrado!' Ballard shouted, putting a panicky edge to his voice, then turned to shout to the pirate schooner with his brass speaking trumpet. 'Hold your fire, for God's sake! We'll strike to you! Mercy, in the name of God! Hold your fire!'

The American flag came tumbling down to trail astern as its halyard was cut, and the sails began to luff and thunder in disarray.

'Now, sir?' Parham insisted.

'Not yet, Mister Parham,' Ballard said. 'Calmly, now, remember? We'll do it the way our captain said he served a French privateer during the late war. Close enough to smell 'em, first! But do you extend to Lieutenant Pomeroy my compliments, and tell him it's time he posted his men on the starboard gangway, below the bulwarks, and be ready to volley at close range.'

'Aye, aye, sir!' Parham replied, dashing off in haste, in spite of Ballard's cautions.

The schooner was now a quarter-cable off, not fifty yards away, and almost at decent musket-shot Her boarding party was already up on the bulwarks, with lift-lines and parrel lines dangling so they could swing over to board once they got hull to hull. Others poised at bow and stern with grappling irons.