Such Miracles and Mischiefs by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole

Author:Trudy J. Morgan-Cole [Morgan-Cole, Trudy J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781550819021
Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Unwelcome News Is Delivered

THE SHIP’S CANNONS BOOMED, THE CRACK REVERBERating through every timber of the vessel. For the first time, there was no answering thunder from the other ship. “We got ’em,” said Sam Brennan, through clenched teeth.

Across a little stretch of water, the Spanish vessel smoked and rocked. She was a smaller ship than the White Lion, about eighty tons, but her crew had put up a brave fight. Now, as Ned and Sam and the other men on the Lion’s deck watched, the Spanish sailors tied a white flag to their mast, and the Lion’s guns ceased firing.

The White Lion drew near the crippled ship; Ned hauled up one of the grappling hooks and threw it with all his might towards the splintered rail of the other vessel which, he now saw, was called the Maria Teresa. The taking of the ship was accomplished without bloodshed, save for the handful of Spaniards who had been killed during the gun battle. Once Captain Elfrith’s men had boarded her, the Spanish sailors surrendered quickly. Ned and his shipmates, except for a few left on the Maria Teresa to see her to port, were back on the White Lion in time for their evening meal.

“Never fought in a battle at sea before?” Brennan asked Ned, as they dipped their ship’s biscuit into a watery stew.

“Not at sea, nor on land,” Ned said. “I’ve been a builder, not a soldier.”

“If you stay aboard the Lion, you’ll have your blade bloodied yet. Nico, remember that fight we had in the north, off New France?” he called to another sailor, a grizzled fellow who looked seventy years old, though likely he was no more than forty.

“Aye, that was a fine bit of fighting. I killed three Frenchmen that day,” Nico laughed.

“I was with Captain Argall when we sacked the French colony at Port Royal,” Ned said, “but we killed no-one, only burned the place.” He hoped his record of destroying French settlements would give him some credit with these men, but he wasn’t about to claim battles he hadn’t fought.

He’d been on the White Lion under Elfrith’s command for two months now, sailing about the isles of the Indies, making port a few times. The capture of the Maria Teresa was the first action they had seen. Whenever they were ashore, if other English ships were in port, Ned asked about the Happy Adventure and Captain Sly. A few sailors had heard of the captain or his ship, but none knew where they might be found at this time of the year. Back to Ireland where he had connections to sell his goods, someone suggested, or off to the Mediterranean to fight the Turks. Down here in the Indies, no-one had seen the Happy Adventure.

Ned fit in fairly well with Elfrith’s rough-and-tumble crew, though he missed the company of Francis and Red Peter, who he had thought would take ship with him. A week before Elfrith was ready to leave James Fort, Peter had taken ill with a fever.

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