Chapter 7
22 December, 1659 = Monday

By eight bells the next morning the Badger was slow cruising Nevis and on the lookout for any signs of sail. It wouldn't be until noon that sails would emerge from the harbor and my men would cheer as we gave chase to a twin masted vessel, but something didn't seem quite right to me. While the Badger wasn't inherently close when the ship left port, I saw no sailors tending the ship's cannon. With possible enemy within spying distance of his ship, I figured any competent commander to be ready to deal death and misery to his attacker at the first chance but this one seemed content to just speed away.

"Or run away," I groused as I realized the enemy captain was trying to do just that. "Full sail!"

My crew readied the main sails and we began to give chase as my helmsman cut the best points of sail. I watched from the foredeck as we sailed not far behind, my crew already bringing out the chain shot for my chasers as they readied them to fire.

"Shall we fire the chasers, sir?" Stiles asked me as the cannons were run out after being loaded.

"Fire at will," I commanded him and then chuckled at the old joke of why no sailor was called Will while at sea. "Bring that ship to a crawl."

"Aye, aye, sir," Stiles said cheerily as he began lining up the cannons to fire. I watched as Stiles sighted in the fleeing ship, his first few shots seeming to rip the rigging to pieces and make her sails flutter and thus slow the ship and allow me to catch up, but her blue coated captain seemed resolute as his men readied themselves to fight, but still her cannon were never run out even as we neared close enough to see the captain's face without the spy glass, a familiar face…

"Shit," I cursed as I realized where I knew that face from. He had been the captain of the mail runner I had seized days prior, and unless he had resigned his commission, was still an officer of the king's red coats.

"Sir?" Stiles asked me as I looked frantically around to gauge the wind's direction

"It's a trick," I told him. "They want us to try and board."

"Grapeshot?" Stiles asked and I nodded.

"Ready the starboard side," I told him. "We'll only get one shot before they attack."

"I don't see much crew," he told me. "We could take that many."

"Pride goeth before the fall," I countered as the cannons were readied. Once run out, I raised my cutlass to act as a visible signal. "To port!"

My helmsman cut the Badger away from our prize so our cannons lined up with the targets then I brought the cutlass down. The cannons fired almost as one and sent a wall of deadly bits of metal across the ship.

"Prepare to board!" I called as my helmsman brought us back to the other ship. I once again led the charge over, noting with glee the lack of any red coats as I landed on the deck. Then the captain began ranging a bell with reckless abandon, and out of the hold came the army of red coats and my heart sank.

"Kill 'em all!" I called as my men worked to overpower dedicated soldiers. With so many between us, I was forced to fight for my own life as well as my men's lives. It was such a chaotic battle I couldn't even tell whom was winning and just hacked and slashed anything with a red coat until the British realized they weren't going to win.

"Surrender!" I shouted as I approached the last knot of men.

"Alright," a soldier said, dropping his longsword to the deck. His fellow soldiers did likewise and I addressed the man. "Police the wounded, take as many as you want in the longboats with you."

"Yes sir," he said as he and his fellows began to follow my orders. Problem was, not many of the soldiers were still alive as they had been hacked to pieces in the melee.

"You..." I heard behind me as I watched the red coats load a badly injured sailor into the boats. I looked back to see the enemy captain eyeing me from among the dead lying on the deck, and I approached him.

"Me," I said as I knelt next to him. "Good tactic. Excellent execution."

"We...still...failed," the captain gasped out.

"There is no measure for the will of a man," I told him as his fellow redcoats joined us. They hefted the injured man to the longboat and cast off to leave me with what was left of my crew, then I realized I had a major problem. I only had about ten men left.

"Where's Stiles?" I asked them. They all shrugged and began to look around, and I realized I might be out a first mate and a man I might call friend.

"Ready the dead for burial," I told the remaining crew. "And if you find Stiles, let me know."

"Aye," a red headed man said but his voice was tired and lacked enthusiasm. I began searching for my first mate, soon finding him between the cannons with his throat cut wide open. I hung my head over the side and threw up, tears from the pain of losing the one man I had liked blurring my vision.

Sitting down on the cannon, I remembered our first conversation when I landed in this century and how he had a sister. I couldn't recall hearing her name, only that she was fat with child at their last parting. I did remember she lived in Devon, but that he wrote her by an inn in Plymouth every Christmas. Well, Christmas was days away and if Stiles hadn't wrote her yet I'd send his letter, if written, with my own along with a share of our plunder in accordance with the Code.

Sitting there, I surveyed the ship that I had paid so dearly for. It was a dual masted vessel, much larger than my own sloop but still gaff rigged so I figured it was a larger version of a sloop, maybe even a ketch. It had sixteen cannons along her main deck, a raised poop deck over a captain's cabin that also contained the ship's helm.

After I found the ship's access to it's hold I found that it was like my sloop in that it had two more decks under the main deck, one for berthing and then the main hold in the very bottom. I counted the available hammocks finding I had enough for a hundred and twenty men with the double slung hammocks available in the cramped space. It was a good ship, but I had my doubts it was any sort of small brig and more like a large sloop because the hull seemed just a slightly larger version of my sloop.

"If only Stiles were alive he'd tell me what class of ship this was," I commented silently in the dark gloom of the hold. Leaving the gloom behind, I saw what was left of my crew taking down the hammocks and taking them back up to the main deck. The reason why was depressing, but I took one of the hammocks down and set myself to the grisly work at hand of clearing the deck by tending to Stiles corpse personally.

When McGregor and his own crew caught up to us some time later, they helped as well but the number of dead were staggering. We had killed over a hundred red coats along with about twenty British sailors while I lost twenty-two men. How had we killed so many? Still, when the last stitch was put through the last sailor's nose, I took the Holy Bible from my cabin and read aloud from Saint John's gospel chapter fourteen, verses one through three as it was all I could think of to read from for a funeral. Stiles was the first we pitched into the water, consigning his body to the sea forever.

"Orders?" McGregor asked me once we had the last of the bodies pitched into the water. That it was late and the sun setting was good, it meant we had protection for the night from any attacking ship.

"I'm going to make this ship my new flagship," I told him as I walked over gangplank to the Badger.

"We have not the crew to man all three," he countered. "Any ship we pass could take us without a fight."

"That's why we'll have to head back now for Saint Eustatius," I told him as I entered my cabin. "We'll sell the Badger and the merchantman, consolidate the crew to my new ship and I'll see about signing up new crew to join us to replace our lost men."

"Aye, aye," he said, agreeing with me as I started to gather my personal belongings and place them back into my sea chest. "I was wondering whom you'd name as quartermaster."

"As the only officer left on the roster, I leave that position to you," I told him once I snapped the chest closed. I didn't really want to replace Stiles but I also knew the position had to be filled.

"Thank you, sir," he said as I hefted my sea chest without a grunt thanks to my strength and it seemed to impress McGregor. "I'll do my best by you."

"First things first," I told him as I left the main cabin of the Badger. "Transfer the Dutch flag to the new ship and then bring me Stiles sea chest. I want to see if his letter to his sister in Devon is finished. If it is, I'll post it to her."

"Aye sir," he said, breaking off to carry out my orders. I carried my sea chest to my new cabin and settled in just as McGregor and another sailor brought in Stiles's sea chest. I rummaged through it, finding the letter Stiles intended to send and set it aside. Nothing else in his chest seemed personal, just some clothes and stuff intended to maintain his personal hygiene and keep his weapon clean and sharp.

With nothing else to do and the ship quiet, I decided to get some sleep and settled into but but the ship's creaks and groans making sleep difficult to achieve as I tossed and turned. It took a long time for sleep to finally find me, but one thing I decided on before I did finally nod off was that while sailing was my fantasy and being a pirate was the height of that fantasy, I might be better off keeping the merchantman and becoming a 17th century truck driver than staying a privateer. It just wasn't good for your health.