To Glory Arise (Privateers and Gentlemen) by Walter Jon Williams

Author:Walter Jon Williams [Williams, Walter Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Historical, War & Military, action, sea stories, privateers, american revolution, war, combat, sea adventure, naval adventure, privateer, fighting sail, markham brothers
ISBN: 9780988901711
Google: r1-sCAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Walter Jon Williams
Published: 2013-03-20T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The two warships, locked together, rolled sluggishly on the uneasy sea. The stern chase that lasted half a day had ended in a battle lasting less than two minutes. For the American privateers, it had been the sort of fight to which they’d been accustomed, and which two years’ experience had made almost second nature. They had ranged alongside at point-blank range, fired two accurate broadsides of grape to the enemy’s uneven one, then forged ahead and crossed the British bows. Another raking round of grape had been fired as the enemy’s bows made contact with the American bulwarks, grappling irons were thrown, and then the American boarders had swarmed over the enemy ship while its own demoralized crew stampeded for the hatches.

“My sword, sir,” said the British captain. “I am Captain Graham.” He was a short, pleasant-faced man with an air of ingenuousness; he seemed scarcely bothered by the fact that a third of his crew were bleeding in the scuppers and enemy boarders were walking abroad his decks. He seemed curious as to the nature of his captors, the furious, half-barbaric Yankees of whom he had heard so much.

A woman was screaming somewhere below decks. Malachi Markham took his captive’s sword without a word and handed it to Shaw.

“I have my papers ready for inspection,” said the British captain. “We’re the letter-of-marque Spitfire, fourteen carriage guns, bound for Port Royal. The cargo manifests are all in order, I believe.”

The woman shrieked again. Malachi’s brows closed in a frown. “What’s that woman caterwauling about?” he asked.

“You, er, caused the death of her husband,” said Graham. “Colonel Proudfit of the Thirty-seventh of Foot. He was returning to his regiment in Jamaica. His body lies there.”

Malachi’s green eyes turned briefly to the red-coated corpse, then back to the British captain. “I wish all His Majesty’s colonels were dead,” he said calmly. “And their wives. And His Majesty, too.”

Spitfire’s crew were battened below; the captain, along with a major and two captains of the Thirty-seventh Foot, were transferred to Cossack and acquainted with their accommodations in the cable tier.

No doubt the British captain would have a ripping great story to tell about the semi-savage Americans.

Andrew Keith was made prizemaster and the ships cut free from one another. Cossack shaped her course to the southwest, after the distant speck of Piscataqua’s mainsail on the horizon. Josiah was in chase of a fast schooner that had been in Spitfire’s company when the privateers had sighted them.

It was early July of 1778. For over two years the Markham partnership had flourished in the Caribbean. Over fifty British vessels, large and small, had been made prize by the American privateers, and cheerfully sold, against the British if not the Spanish law, in Spanish ports. In return for this favor, the Markhams had assisted Governor de Gálvez of Louisiana in an undeclared war against the British on the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, where His Britannic Majesty’s soldiers, from their base in Florida, had been establishing military colonies.

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