However grand and splendid it might be, it wasn't fast enough to suit the admiral. He didn't know what he could do about that. Well, actually, he did know: he could do nothing. Even with a breeze from the north, the fleet had to make headway against the warm current that came up from the other direction. Farther out in the Hesperian Gulf, the current did not flow, but the added distance and the unending uncertainty about longitude made evading the current anything but a sure time-saver.
"We may still come upon Avalon unawares," Walton said.
"We may, yes, but I doubt we shall," William replied.
"Oh, ye of little faith." The Englishman's smile took most of the sting from the words.
"I have faith," Radcliff said. "I have faith that the freebooters are less foolish than you make them out to be."
And his faith, such as it was, was vindicated when shouts from the fleet's crow's nests came down to the decks: "Sail ho! Sail ho! Sail ho!"
"Sail ho!" the lookout shouted from high in the Black Hand's rigging. "Sail ho! Sail ho!" The third repetition seemed to carry an almost desperate urgency.
Red Rodney Radcliffe peered north. He couldn't see anything from the brigantine's deck. He would soon enough, though-all too soon. Sailors had known the world was round long before landlubber scholars realized as much. The way things came up over the sea's long, smooth horizon showed it plain as plain.
"Send form line of battle abreast!" he shouted to the Royal Navy renegade who made signals for him.
"Aye aye, skipper!" Quint answered with a grin, and ran up the flags.
Not far away, the nominal admiral's ship would hoist the same signal, and hardly anyone would know Red Rodney had ordered the move first. He only hoped the freedom-loving captains who commanded the other ships would take the order seriously.
The bastards on the other side would do what their admiral told them to. Rodney Radcliffe was only too sure of that. He usually despised the men of Stuart and England and Nieuw Haarlem for their slavish obedience. In battle, though, he knew how much it mattered.
He was too busy looking to port and starboard to see what his colleagues and comrades were doing to pay much attention to what lay ahead for some little while. When he did turn his eyes to the north again, his stomach lurched as if he were prone to seasickness. He had never seen such large ships so close before. A pirate with an ounce of sense sheered off when he spied a first-rate ship of the line. He wasn't likely to last long against one in a straight-up fight.
They were in line of battle, the men-of-war and their accompanying scavengers. All their ships sailed as if animated by a single will. So Rodney thought, anyhow, till he spied the gaggle of Dutchmen keeping station on one another rather than with their English comrades. But they didn't do much harm to the enemy line, and conformed to the movements of the rest of the fleet.
His own ships, on the other hand…
If he hadn't known they'd practiced staying together and fighting as a group, he never would have believed it. They straggled all over the sea. If they formed a line, it was a line drawn by a drunk.
At least they sailed toward the enemy fleet. The wind blew from a little north of west, which gave the enemy the weather gauge and the choice of fighting or declining battle. The big ships sailed forward, their masts blooming with sails. They weren't here to pull back.
Neither was Red Rodney Radcliffe. He glanced toward those men-of-war. Then he looked west, out toward the edge of his own ragged line-and beyond. Looking that way meant looking into the westering sun. Red Rodney smiled to himself. In some ways, this couldn't have worked out better if he'd planned it for months. He had planned to fight, but knowing when the fleets would meet… That was luck, nothing else. And luck favored him now.
Luck favored him as long as he could make a fight of it, anyhow. A bow chaser on one of the enemy ships fired. He saw the puff of smoke and the belch of fire before he heard the cannon go off. Bow and stern chasers were long guns, which gave them more range than the pieces on the gun decks.
The iron ball splashed into the sea several hundred yards short of the closest pirate ship. By the size of the splash, it was a twelve-pounder. Rodney muttered to himself. Twelve-pounders were broadside guns on the Black Hand. Would a ball from one of them even pierce a ship of the line's thick iron planking?
He'd find out before long. William Radcliff and the men who sailed with him would want to slug it out at close range. Of course they would-they had all the advantage that way. A broadside from one of those monster ships could smash a brigantine to ruins. The corsairs' fight was slash and dart and run away.
But Avalon couldn't run. Red Rodney hated his cousin with a loathing all the more profound because William Radcliff understood that too well. Individual freebooters could survive even if the worst befell their town. Their reign over the Hesperian Gulf? That would be over, over forever.
"Shall we answer them, skipper?" called a pirate at the Black Hand's bow gun.
It was a pipsqueak four-pounder, good for nothing more than frightening ships that couldn't fight back. Red Rodney nodded all the same. "Yes, by God!" he shouted. "Let 'em know we're here to give 'em what for!"
A moment later, the little popgun roared defiance at the approaching fleet. Its ball also fell short, but by less than the first gun's had. The pirates manhandled it back into position, swabbed out the bore, thrust in the worm to dispose of any bits of smoldering wadding, and then rammed home powder and ball and fired again.
Several other bow chasers on both sides went off. One ball struck home with a crash that echoed across the water. Red Rodney eyed the enemy fleet with wary apprehension. When William Radcliff or whoever was in command judged the time ripe…
As smoothly as if they'd practiced together for years, all the ships of the line and the smaller vessels with them swung to port. "Hard to starboard!" Red Rodney shouted to his own helmsman, and then, to Quint, "Signal hard to starboard!"
His own fleet's broadside would be puny next to the one that came at it, but he had to stand the gaff at least once. Yes, the corsairs would take punishment, but they would also dish some out. And they would hold the enemy in position for a little while. Rodney Radcliffe glanced west again. They needed to do that if they were to have any chance of discomfiting the dogs out of Stuart.
Then the enemy broadside spoke, and Red Rodney thought he'd fallen into the end of the world. The flame, the smoke, the thunder…A heavy cannon ball smashed into the Black Hand's rail and decking. The brigantine staggered; Radcliffe felt the shudder through his feet. Whistling, whining splinters flew everywhere. A man not six feet from him went down with a gurgling scream, clutching at the jagged length of timber that speared his throat. Blood poured from the wound, and from his mouth. He was a dead man, one who wasn't quite finished dying yet.
The corsairs' broadside answered the one from the enemy. Even to Radcliffe's ear, it sounded thin and ragged. It didn't have the crushing weight of metal the English and Dutch and eastern Atlanteans enjoyed, and it was disrupted by taking hits from those big guns. Even so, a mast on one of the men-of-war toppled. On deck, sailors on that ship ran like ants when a foot comes down. Red Rodney whooped.
He wasn't so happy when he turned his eye toward his own side. One pirate ship was on fire, another slewing helplessly out of line with rudder shot away, yet another with both masts down. The men-of-war fired again, this time ship by ship. They were happy enough pounding pirates to pieces.
Red Rodney looked west once more. He could only hope the enemy admiral wasn't doing the same.
XIV
W illiam Radcliff watched in somber satisfaction as pirate ships crumpled under the thunderous barrage from his fleet. Aboard the Royal Sovereign, sweating, swearing, bare-chested sailors reloaded and ran guns forward to fire again. Petty officers urged them on with shouts and with strokes from rattan sticks.