“Two hunnert yards. Just like the man said. Yes, just like the man said. He said ‘two hunnert,’ so that’s what I set her at, sure did, yes sir. Just right smack on a hunnert an’ a hunnert. Cranked her up there myself. She was already set on zero, Jack, so I took four full turns and it came up on two hunnert, is that what ye wanted?”
“That’s it,” Jack said with a grin.
It was Jack’s plan to fire a round to get the range just before reaching parallel with the warehouses. It would give them just moments to readjust the rest of the cannon for their salvo. Jack sprinted back to the quarterdeck, staring intently into the night. He called back to Hansum in a low voice, “Stand by, Bob… ready now… steady… fire!”
Hansumbob placed the wick with the reddened coal on the touch hole at the end of the barrel. A slight flash balanced by a tremendous boom filled the Habana night as the shot tore across the water. Jack heard Paul shout from high in the masthead that they were short fifty yards.
Jack turned to Mentor and told him to crank up half a turn and fire, starting with the number one gun. The gunner lit off his cannon, followed immediately by the next four. Paul reported at least one direct hit on the warehouse to the west. It appeared to be on fire.
Jack sprang back down to the gun deck. “Reload! Reload! We’ve two minutes before we come about!”
The men were already hauling the heavy cannon out of their ports and swabbing the hot barrels. Jamming the powder package into the long cylinders, they rolled the heavy iron balls wrapped in oily rags into the barrels and tamped them with the blunt end of the swab. Hansumbob reloaded first, as he had fired first. “Fire at will!” Almost in unison the starboard guns sent another flaming salvo into the western warehouse.
Jack yelled to Hansum to have the gunners stand to on the port side. He heard them securing the pieces just fired and scurrying across the ship to the port guns as he ran back to Quince at the helm. “If we come about hard now, where will we end up?”
“We’d be better to wait a minute, Jack, so our guns will be perpendicular to the shore.”
“Aye, give me the word.” Jack watched the fire from the hacienda, too anxious to stay in one place. The smoke rolled skyward, blackening the early morning sky. There were people scurrying about in a vain attempt to squelch the building’s flames. Jack’s concern for Quen-Li distracted him even now. They must try to find him; their triumph would seem incomplete with him gone.
The port guns had been loaded and the crew had released the port sheets. They were holding the starboard lines, waiting for their orders, grinning as they watched the fires blaze freely in the warehouse to the west. Quince shouted, “Stand by to come about!” There was wild anticipation on board as the whole crew realized that if they weren’t fast enough in this next operation, they would be caught dead in the water at the end of the bay, extremely vulnerable because of the light air.
Quince commanded the men to look lively. He spun the heavy wheel to his right. The Star seemed to shudder for a moment, then her bow swept across the view of the burning warehouses. The crew coordinated with Quince beautifully, bringing the ship back along the path they had just sailed, albeit fifty yards closer to shore.
“Good job, lad. You’ll make a seaman yet!” Jack bellowed to Quince. The older man laughed.
“Mind your guns, nipper, and let me guide the ship.”
Jack looked at Hansumbob. “How far inshore do you think we’ve come?”
“I figure forty to sixty yards closer, Jack. Yep, that’s what I figure. I figure forty—”
“Right.”
Paul shouted they were coming up on parallel, and Jack had his men crank down a half turn. Hansum fired his cannon, and Jack could see the shot explode in the center of the dry goods. The rest of the cannon followed suit, and the warehouses were all alight.
Jack turned to the first mate. “Mr. Quince, sir, I think it’s time we found our way into open water.”
“Aye, Skipper. Open water she is.”
Quince turned the wheel 20 degrees to the north and made for the mouth of the harbor. Jack stood in the fantail, leaning against the rail, transfixed by the blazes. The warehouse fire had blocked his view of Count de Silva’s hacienda. Jack wished he could have stayed and watched the count’s home burn to the ground.
Quince turned the wheel over to Mentor, easing his bulk next to Jack.
“I should like a word with you.”
Jack nodded.
“You handled yourself well this past several hours, but let me tell you, lad: don’t indulge yourself in anger.”
Jack said nothing.
“This last five minutes you’ve been standing here, talking to yourself, spewing venom at a city ablaze. You have a crew to tend to, guns to reload. Let’s turn to.”
Jack glanced back at the bay. “The burning wasn’t enough. I thought it would be, but it’s not. I want him desperately, Quince.”
“All in good time, lad. If he has a way to retaliate, he will. If not, we’ll lay off for a bit, then beat our way north for cooler climes.”
Jack turned to help the crew reload as the ship carved her path through the lightening red sky.
The Star hove to, riding the gentle swells of Habana’s outer harbor, the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon. No active flames remained on the wharf as far as Jack could tell, but smoke hung as a thick cloud over the entire town. Most of the damage had been confined to de Silva’s holdings, but merchants and town dignitaries mingled with the waterfront riffraff, obviously trying to make sense of it all. There had been no concerted attack on the town, just one ship on a rampage against certain properties—Jack knew that Spaniards understood blood grudges.
Crowds had gathered in the heights and on an unpopulated spit of land wide enough for traffic at low tide. Carriages were drawn up to the water’s edge, their occupants staring at the sleek dark ship that had caused so much havoc.
Jack leaned on the rail of the quarterdeck with Quince, Mentor, and Paul. “They don’t know what to think,” Paul said. “They realize somebody in their midst just heard a whisper from hell, but they’re not sure if maybe he didn’t deserve it.”
“Aye,” from Quince. “The buggers don’t know if we’re the instrument of the Lord or the devil.”
His comment was punctuated by report of a cannon from the castillo, then another. The fort would periodically let fly with shells from their longest distance ordnance, all falling far short of the Star.
“Guess they feel like they ought to be doing something,” Jack said.
Some of the merchant vessels were pulling anchor and edging away from the Star, closer to the protection of the town’s guns. They flew white flags to emphasize that they were neutral regarding whatever the hell mayhem had torn the night asunder. The presence of the merchantmen played well into the plans of the Brotherhood; Quince and Jack had judged correctly that the castillo would prove ineffective against a single rogue ship plying its way quickly through a harborful of merchant ships, particularly at night.
When they had passed within range of the castillo’s cannon, they made sure to keep the lawful merchant vessels—laden with goods from Spain and valuable human cargo from Africa—between them and the fort. Not one of the few desultory shots taken at them so much as nicked their ship’s wood or canvas.
Jack felt it dreamlike, that tense but silent exit from the inner harbor. The Star passed one ship after another, their officers and crews commanding their men to keep clear of their deck guns and show no hostile intentions as the dark ship with an even darker flag swept by.