uncontrollable hysterics. “What in blazes are you laughing at? You’re making the crew nervous.”
“The Minnow?” Harry gasped. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was a three-hour tour?” And then he fell back laughing again.
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
Harry, tears streaming out of his eyes, propped himself up and explained, since they had nothing better to do, about the strange up-time TV phenomenon known as Gilligan’s Island.
Hearing the return of calm to the back of his boat, Aurelio edged aftward to take a look at Lefferts. “He okay?” the Piombinese captain asked North.
Harry stared up at Aurelio, then pointed and chortled, “Oh. My. God. It’s the Skipper-with a mustache and an Italian accent!” In an attempt to keep his laughing more quiet, Lefferts pitched over, head between his knees, his back quaking in time with his suppressed guffaws.
Orazio joined his uncle many times removed to look at the stricken up-timer. “The captain, he is not well?”
Harry looked up, and now the laughter was coming out as choked, wheezing spasms. He pointed again, this time at Orazio. “And Gilligan. Where’s the Professor? He’ll figure out the attack plan we need. And Ginger-oh, Ginger-” He bent over again, laughing so hard that he could no longer speak.
Aurelio and Orazio looked at North, eyebrows high, eyes wide. “The captain-is he-eh, that is, has he-?”
North sighed. “The captain is fine. Just very, very amused.”
“Amused? While we wait to fight pirates?”
“He laughs in the face of death. Me too. Ha, ha.”
The Italians’ stares ping-ponged from North, to the recovering Lefferts, and back to North. Although they did not speak, their thoughts were easy to read: “Mad Englishmen.” North couldn’t blame them for thinking that; in fact, he was disposed to agree with them. Even if they did shamefully associate up-time Americans with their English progenitors. “You see, now; the captain is quite himself again.”
Which was almost true. Lefferts sat up very straight, opened his mouth to begin what would probably be a very sane, rational explanation for his debilitating fit of mirth-when one of the Venetians who had been seeded on board the Minnow hissed, “The little pirate boat has started back from the caves.”
The scialuppa was suddenly quiet. Lefferts’ rapid, easy shift into complete tactical focus was, North had to admit, enviable. “Get yourself behind the sail, Orazio, and then scan the boat using the binoculars. Don’t keep them out for more than a minute; we don’t want the pirates getting a glimpse of the lenses. Tell me what you see back at the caves. Aurelio, start taking us to windward of the pirate llaut — slowly. Nothing suspicious.”
“ Si, Captain Lefferts.” Aurelio did not like combat-he was a fisherman by both trade and temperament-but he seemed relieved at Harry’s recovery.
“Orazio, what are you seeing? Tell me everything, lil’ buddy.” Harry snickered as the uttered the last words; North resolved to view whatever episodes of Gilligan’s Island had made the journey back down-time.
If Orazio noticed Harry’s strange form of address, he gave no sign of it; he was too intent on his job. “I see our men in the boat, dressed in the pirates’ clothes and gear. The number in the boat equal the number of pirates killed in the cave, plus those who approached in the skiff. As you instructed.”
“Excellent. Are they rowing or-?”
“Yes, they are rowing, but now they are also putting up the step sail. Captain, I am thinking they will be out here in ten, maybe fifteen minutes?”
“Except that the pirate doesn’t seem disposed to wait that long,” commented North. “Look.”
They did: the pirate llaut had come about briskly, heading in toward the Bay of Canyamel, evidently determined to rendezvous as quickly as possible.
Harry smiled. “Guess they’re getting antsy out here.”
“Or don’t want us close enough to observe what happens when they meet,” offered North.
“Probably both,” Lefferts replied with a grin. “Aurelio-”
“ Si, Major; you want me to use the llaut ’s change of position to work more to windward of them. And then close the distance. Slowly.”
“You read my mind, Skipper. I’ll have Mary Ann bake you a pineapple pie.”
“Eh?”
“Never mind. Look to the sails. Thomas, it’s probably about time for us to bring out the tools of our trade.”
“Fishing rods?”
“Well-rods, I guess,” commented Harry. Keeping it below the level of the gunwale, he unwrapped his SKS. “And appropriate for us fishers of men.”
“My, that’s awful grim for a Yank,” commented North. “And improbably poetic. Are you sure you’re not becoming English?”
Thomas, who had only been in a few shipboard fights over the course of his career, was once again struck by the almost surreal pacing of them.
First, there was a long cat-and-mouse game as each of the three ships tried to feign a false identity and purpose. The small skiff affected the appearance of being filled by busily rowing fishermen-or disguised pirates, depending upon the intended audience. The corsair llaut attempted to create the impression of a fishing boat lazily approaching the shore. And the Minnow mimicked the irregular course changes of a boat trying to find the best spot in which to let down nets. Throughout this ballet of deception, the skiff and llaut closed with each other slowly; the Minnow, having the advantage of the wind at its back, was able to approach indirectly and at a positively glacial pace.
But then, as the boats drew within a few hundred yards of each other, everything seemed to speed up. The skiff angled aside to bring the breeze more over its beam. This changed its approach to the llaut from a gradual yet direct rendezvous, to a speedier, but oblique course that would ultimately bring it across the bows of the larger ship: “crossing the T” as the admirals of later, up-time centuries had put it.
At the same time, the llaut had raised her yard a bit, putting more sheet to the reaching wind. The ship would call more attention to itself that way, but the pirates were probably preparing to abandon their efforts at mimicking a legitimate fishing boat. This close to the mouth of the bay, they probably wanted speed more than anything else; their goal was now to reach the skiff, take it and its men on board, and swing about toward open water where-if Spanish patrol boats put in a surprise appearance-the corsair could maneuver and evade.
Meanwhile, the Minnow began swinging slowly around to catch the wind from the rear starboard quarter. Given the way she was rigged currently, that pushed her forward at maximum speed. North heard the occasional, swell-cutting whispers of the prow mount into the hoarse, bumping rush that betokened speed great enough to generate a true bow wave.
Soon after, someone on the llaut obviously saw something suspicious in the oncoming skiff; wild gesticulations in its direction summoned two more observers into the bows, who hurriedly gestured to turn about.
The llaut veered off-but within moments discovered that it was directly leeward of the no-longer innocent looking scialuppa, which was now bearing down on them, its crew crouching low behind its gunwales. At approximately two hundred yards, the pilot of the pirate craft must have recognized the same speed and directness of course that he had set many times himself when attempting to intercept prey. Trapped, the corsair veered again, back toward its old course, simultaneously trying to cheat close to the wind, keep speed, and run out from between the two ships that were now clearly operating in concert.
But the prize crew on the skiff had foreseen and planned on this. Rather than giving direct chase when the llaut had first veered away from them, it had held its oblique course, continuing to push directly out of the bay, step sail raised high. And now the stratagem behind that maneuver became clear: when the llaut came around to avoid the Minnow, it found its prow aiming straight at the side of the skiff. The llaut no longer had enough room to avoid both of the ships; it would have to pass at close quarters with one of them, at least, or head deeper into the bay.
Seeing the small, overloaded skiff as the only thing standing in his way, the pirate captain made the predictable choice: to head straight for it. It was a sound tactic: on the one hand, it minimized the effect of the one volley its occupants might get off by making sure the spray of bullets came over the sheltering bow, rather than over the beam. Additionally, the ketch either had to move out of the llaut ’s way, or be smashed by its almost
