Part 7 of 9
Whatever element of surprise Cecil had planned, it was not granted! Arch, at the helm, shouts orders to his neophyte crew as Danilo dashes below to retrieve their meager weaponry. The captain then orders the freed hostages below. The ladies flee but Stitch and Titch remain. "Let us help!" they cry, and Arch tells them to assist with the small arms. They need to distract and disrupt the crew of the Harvester until the Vida Nova can gain distance… for the tide, current, and wind favor the pirates.
Cecil had hidden himself away, avoiding the search ships and waiting for the Vida Nova to venture forth. He was confident he could recapture her and take the entire crew prisoner, as he needs able hands to make up for the latest round of deserters and the ten men locked up in Belém's gaol. He'd counted on taking the ship by surprise because he and his whole crew, except for Scratch, are as hungover as porticos and not up to a real fight. Consequently, Cecil hasn't ordered the cannon readied, relying instead on his rabble of 150 crewmen to storm the Vida Nova once they grapple her – but he soon regrets this as the Vida Nova slides into the main channel and starts to pull away.
Sissy shouldn't be surprised. His ship weighs in at 300 ton, the Vida Nova a svelte 100 ton. The Harvester is built for fighting, carrying thirty-two 24-pound guns. The sleek Vida Nova has no cannon and an empty cargo hold, thereby rendering her fleet as a deer in comparison.
"Full sail, you gallows monkeys," Cecil bellows as he snaps open his telescope, "Keep arter her! Aarrr!" The ship strains under him, giving chase toward the open water. He knows a squall is brewing but believes, wrongly as it happens, that the river banks will protect him from the worst of it. He plans to overtake his prey before salt water kisses his bow but he's at a great disadvantage – his navigator and weather prognosticator was discovered missing only this morning. Yes, little Titch is gone – and his big dumb mutt too! To add insult to injury, the doctor is also missing. Cecil can guess where they are, the traitorous pressed scum! Askwyth with have company for his keelhauling.
The Vida Nova has one more advantage: a new hull uncluttered by seaweed, barnacles, and sundry growth that slows a ship's passage. Even from his aft deck Archie can see the green stretch of scum at the Harvester's waterline as she bears down upon them; it has not been careened in months. It may buy the Vida Nova time enough to dodge out of the river and into the sea where they have a clear run for home.
But will his ship's lighter weight and clean hull be enough? The enemy carries more sail than he can hope to get aloft, and the squall blows to the sea. "Full sail!" Archie shouts against the rising wind. The young crew scramble to obey, unfurling every available inch of canvas. "Helm! Bring her to starboard!" he bellows as his best steersman takes over. He lifts his glass to eye the bank. The jungle shore may offer his crew salvation if the chase goes against him.
As logistics and strategies skate through Arch's mind, a hand catches at his arm and he jerks a look around into the intense blue eyes of George Westmorland. The navigator shrieks above the increasing gale, the cracking of sail, the pounding of waves, and points with urgency, "One point north, sir! Clear the bar!"
Archie looks at George, hesitates, sees the sure steady gaze, and gives the order, "Helm, belay! Point north to center stream, steady as she goes!"
"Aye, sir!"
The Vida Nova breaks away from the Harvester, leading her just off the bank of the Pará, angling toward the vast river mouth into choppy waves that are gaining height by the minute.
"Arrrr!" Sissy spouts again (he likes the sound of it) and beats the rail of the poop deck as if he is whipping a horse. "Faster, ye scummy whoreson tub, she'll not escape! Scratch! One side, ye worthless lubber!" Sissy pushes his quartermaster from the wheel and takes control himself, ignoring the increasing fury of the wind driving the brig toward the high seas. There's nothing between him and his prize now as thoughts of bloody revenge dance before his eyes.
Scratch fights his way back to the helm, twitching as he watches the wind riffle on the surface of the river. Something he was taught ages past when he was an honest young seaman stirs in him uneasily. "Sis!" he starts to call out, "Dead ahead! That's –"
"Belay that, ye cowardly dog!" Cecil shouts with contempt as his true men crowd down from the masts and up from the hold, armed to the teeth and anticipating an imminent kill. "We have them, I say!" This blood-lust is his trademark, one he is proud of. "By all the devils in hell, I'll –"
"Sis!" screams Scratch, a moment too late.
The Harvester lurches to an abrupt and crashing stop, spilling men overboard, cracking her mainmast and bringing it smashing down to break open her starboard side. Cannons shift, their wheels grumbling like thunder, the shot spilling over the gun deck like a cannonade itself, mowing down anyone still below the weather deck. Scratch barely manages to keep hold of Cecil as both men clutch at the wheel.
As rope and torn canvas rain down all around him, the dread pirate Cecil Cecilton of the Cheshire Ceciltons, the lord of these waters, stares with horror down the long deck of his ship to what lies before him. He can't believe it. The Harvester has rammed her bow onto a hidden sandbar at full speed.
The stunned Scratch mutters the training couplet he hadn't remembered in time, "Riffled water, shouldn't oughter…" and hangs his head in defeat.
Meanwhile, on the Vida Nova, Arch and his crew are staring back with almost equal horror as well as startled surprise. A call from above makes Arch blink and he looks up. "Deck!" shouts the man on the masthead, "Sail two points port bow!"
Arch sweeps his telescope to two points north and sees, laboring up the stream, tacking desperately against the gale, the familiar shape of a 64-gun third rate ship-of-the-line signalling like mad as if gasping to join the fun, and flying the Stars and Stripes. Archie trains his sight to read the name half-hidden under the modest wings of the eagle figurehead. Freedom. "Late to the party, Captain Foster," he mutters, "but welcome nonetheless, sir."
Danilo whoops right in his captain's ear, "She's struck! Sissy's dead in the water!"
Arch wheels around, only to see the Harvester motionless, canting ominously toward the bank, her mainmast cracked in two, her men struggling in the water. The Freedom may take however much time it needs to come alongside and claim her as its prize; the Harvester isn't going anywhere. Perhaps not ever again.
"Easy the main and foresail!" Arch shouts. He looks past Danilo waltzing Pierre over the deck in victory to where George Westmorland stands at the aft rail, watching the Harvester slowly settle on its starboard beam. Archie moves to stand beside George, raising his telescope. Cecil Cecilton clings to the wheel with one hand while striking out at his quartermaster and various other members of his panicked scurvy crew as water engulfs the slanting deck and everyone still aboard scrambles for higher ground.
"Poor fellow," Arch murmurs. "Shall we give him a heartening cheer, Mr. Westmorland?"
As Sissy stands amid the riot and wreckage of his poop deck, the last thing he sees of the Vida Nova is the jaunty waving of a black hat with a dancing red ribbon. He doesn't need to see the waver, he knows who it is!
And beside that black hat is a cap also waving, doffed to free a flood of blonde curls as George Westmorland crows in a clear, high soprano audible to all three ships, "Titch and Harry say farewell, Sissy, ya great scabby sea bass!'"
Still barely standing, Sissy lifts his free fist to the unfair heavens and shrieks, "ASKWYTH, you DEVIL! I'll hunt you down if it takes me an age!" Then there is an ominous crack overhead and the veritable boom is lowered and he knows no more.
END – part 7