Scarlett Read online

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  Chapter 4: Truth and Consequences

  Smoker stood on the dock with Farrell Mossop, his big, not over intelligent lieutenant, as the Joker and Triomphe pulled in with their two prizes. He was as mad as hell as he could see that the Caravel was a country ship.

  “Jesus Christ! Talk about painting a fucking target on our chests,” he growled, part to himself.

  “Nice ship, though,” Farrell responded without thinking and immediately regretted it as Smoker glowered at him. “I don’t see Ray,” he said as he looked out over the mooring ships.

  Smoker’s heart almost stopped. Farrell was right. Steven Day was obviously commanding the Merlin and Scarlett, the Caravel.

  “Where the hell is he?” he wondered with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He searched the two prizes for his son.

  They waited until the prizes anchored and were unloading, then questioned the men in the boats, who only told them that they didn’t know where Ray was. They assumed he was on one of the other ships. They only caught them up when they were halfway back and couldn’t tell him anything about the capture of the Caravel or loss of the Quin.

  He just had to wait, his anger growing with his frustration until he saw a boat leave the Caravel and head towards the dock. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that both the twins sat in the stern. As they got closer, he saw that Ray had a bandage over his eyes, and his sense of dread returned.

  “What the hell?” he asked as Scarlett and Daniel Brown helped Ray from the boat onto the dock.

  “I’ll tell you all about it when we get to the house,” Daniel said quietly as Ray found his footing on a surface that didn’t constantly move. Smoker nodded, glared at Scarlett, and led the way.

  As they walked the short distance to the house, he looked at his daughter and realized something had changed. She had a hard look to her face that wasn’t there before. There was a palpable sense of anger hanging around her. He definitely needed to hear what Daniel had to say before he talked to her.

  May cried out in concern as she saw them walk up to the house. She rushed to her children, asking Scarlett questions at a ferocious rate. Daniel stepped aside and let the two women take over. He wasn’t needed anymore, so he followed Smoker, who led him to his office.

  “Well, what the fuck happened?” he asked as soon as they were alone.

  Daniel told him everything- how Ray set off after the Caravel despite Scarlett’s objections, the fight after they boarded, and Scarlett’s retribution.

  “She gave the French the Quin to get ashore?” Smoker asked.

  “Yes, after she had us empty it. All they got was a hull and some canvas.”

  “And no one tried to stop her butchering the officers?”

  “You didn’t see her, Smoker,” Daniel exclaimed, fear in his eyes, “it was if she had fire coming from her eyes and anger radiated out of her. She was terrifying.”

  He let the women get Ray comfortable. They sent for the local medicine woman, who made a poultice of crushed onions and salt to reduce the blistering for the burns on his skin. She could offer nothing for his eyes, which were weeping puss. His nose was left to heal as it was. He joked that it would give him a rakish look, and the girls would fall at his feet.

  Once he was settled, Smoker sat with him and asked,

  “Why did you go after a French capital ship, Ray? You knew we wanted to avoid that sort of attention.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last days,” his son replied, “I think it was because Scarlett started making all the decisions and I wanted to show her I could organize things as well, and there was that Frenchman. I guess I was jealous.”

  “Frenchman?” Smoker asked curious.

  “The captain of the Quin before we took her. They sort of took a shine to each other.”

  “A Frenchman?” Smoker said again, a hint of anger creeping into his voice.

  “Don’t worry, Dad, she won’t ever see that one again,” Ray reassured him with a chuckle.

  Smoker had his own ideas about that and called a family meeting a few days later.

  “That ship will be on the watch list of every French navy captain. They don’t take kindly to losing ships and will want to get it back and hang whoever they find on board. Not only that, what you did to their officers will be known by now and will mean they will offer no quarter,” he informed them.

  “Now, I don’t know about you, but facing down the whole French Navy isn’t what I planned when we set up to be privateers.”

  “Does this mean we have to go back to smuggling?” Scarlett asked, knowing that was the last thing she wanted to be doing.

  “I should burn that ship and do exactly that, but I have another idea. I got talking to Abraham Fisher and he told me a story, which set me to thinking.”

  Two weeks later, the Triomphe was renamed the Fox and was being re-fitted and provisioned for a long sea voyage. She wouldn’t resemble the Triomphe much by the time they finished. Her rigging was more English, and her paintwork was completely changed. She got a new figurehead of a carving of a fox depicted from the chest up with front legs outstretched, teeth bared in a ferocious snarl.

  They thought about bigger guns but realized they were interested in profit, not fighting, so the guns would be a last resort. They maximized the crew space by removing the officers’ cabins the French installed, leaving only one for the first and second mates, an area for the rest of the mates, carpenter and master, and room for at least two hundred and fifty crew.

  The Merlin was also refitted to make her more suitable for an Atlantic crossing. Smoker thought she would make a good scout for the Fox, so they would keep the two together.

  With the bigger ship, they needed more men, so Smoker visited the port of Hull and sought out deep water sailors who were interested in adventure and profit.

  “I’m looking for fighting sailors,” he announced in one of the waterside taverns frequented by the type of men he was looking for. “Ones with deep water experience and interested in making some serious money.”

  “The only way to do that is to work independent like,” one commented.

  “You have a problem with that?” Smoker asked to laughter from the other men in the bar.

  He soon had a line of men waiting and signed most of them with instructions to get themselves to Baytown. It was then that he noticed a well-dressed man watching him from a table in the corner. He went to the bar to order another beer and asked the landlord,

  “Who be that bloke over there in the corner?”

  “Him?” the landlord asked, nodding in the direction of the man, “he came in on a ship from Jersey. Talks with a French accent but claims to be as English as you and me.”

  “Sailor?”

  “Claims to have been captain of a lugger that took on the wrong ship.”

  A light came on in Smoker’s mind, and he took his beer over to where the man was sitting, placed it on his table, and pulled up a chair.

  “Don’t mind if I join you.” It was a statement, not a question. The stranger just looked at him.

  Close up, Smoker could see the man had a pair of pistols clipped to his belt and a sword propped within easy reach. It had an ornate basket hilt and looked to be a rapier.

  “Story is you were a captain of a lugger. A privateer?”

  “Yes, under a letter of marque from the French,” he replied in accented English.

  “But you claim to be English,” Smoker stated with a hard look.

  “I am a native of Jersey. We have somewhat complicated alliances and it was easier to get a letter from France than England.”

  “So, what happened to your ship?”

  “Are you recruiting me?”

  “I might, depending on what you tell me,”

  The Frenchman pursed his lips and looked at Smoker, his head tilted to one side,

  “You look like her brother. I am guessing you are her father.”

  “Have you come looking for r
evenge?” Smoker asked, looking him directly in the eyes, his hand hovering near his knife.

  The stranger didn’t flinch or make a move to defend himself.

  “No, it is true I have come looking for her, but not for revenge. I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind. My name is Françoise le Coq.”

  Smoker relaxed and sat back.

  “So, you are the man she’s been mooning over,” he chuckled. “How do you feel about taking a long sea voyage as the skipper of a Ketch?”

  “Be careful to make sure we stay trimmed,” Bill Martin, the Fox’s new second mate cautioned as he watched the barrels of salt beef come aboard. “This bitch will gripe like hell if we get her too bow down.”

  Steven grinned. He was well aware of that and knew Bill was trying to prove he knew what he was doing being the newest junior officer on the Fox. Bill already had one surprise when he found out his captain was a woman and a young one at that. He was waiting to see how the new men would react now that she was visibly in command.

  Scarlett anticipated resistance to her leadership, and she had her own ideas how to educate the unbelievers but that could wait until they got to sea. For now, she was happy to see them fully crewed and ready to sail in a few days’ time.

  Smoker had an educated man who trained as a lawyer write up a charter which every crewmember down to the boys had to put their mark to.

  I. The fund of all payments under the articles is the stock of what is gotten by the expedition, following the law that is, No prey, no pay.

  II. Compensation is provided the Captain for the use of his/her ship/s, and the salary of the carpenter, or shipwright, who mended, careened, and rigged the vessel (the latter usually about 100 pieces of eight). A sum for provisions and victuals is specified, usually 139 pieces of eight. A salary and compensation is specified for the surgeon and his medicine chest, usually 200 pieces of eight.

  III. A standard compensation is provided for maimed and mutilated crew. "Thus they order for the loss of a right arm six hundred pieces of eight; for the loss of a left arm five hundred pieces of eight; for a right leg five hundred pieces of eight; for the left leg four hundred pieces of eight,; for an eye one hundred pieces of eight; for a finger of the hand the same reward as for the eye.

  IV. Shares of booty are provided as follows: "The Captain is allotted five or six portions to what the ordinary seamen have; the First Mate, two; and Officers proportionate to their employment. After whom they draw equal parts from the highest even to the lowest mariner, the boys not being omitted. For even these draw half a share, by reason that, when they happen to take a better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which they have taken."

  V. "In the prizes they take, it is severely prohibited to every one to usurp anything, in particular to themselves… Yea, they make a solemn oath to each other not to abscond, or conceal the least thing they find amongst the prey. If afterwards any one is found unfaithful, who has contravened the said oath, immediately he is separated and turned out of the society."

  Ray came down to the docks; he stopped wearing a bandage and you could see the dark line of scar tissue across his eyes from the burns. He kept his eyes shut as the infection had ruined his eyeballs. He would never see again and was guided by his younger brother, Raif, who assumed the role of guide and protector.

  “Welcome aboard, bruv!” Scarlett laughed as she gathered him up in a hug.

  He hugged her back, feeling the affection she poured out for him.

  “Flying visit, sis, just to check you are behaving yourself. Has the new skipper of the Merlin arrived yet?”

  “I heard he was coming down from Hull with Dad. Are they back yet?”

  “Arrived last night. I’m surprised you haven’t met him yet.” Ray grinned at her.

  Scarlett immediately became suspicious as she knew her brother as well as herself. She walked to the stern where the Merlin was moored to the dock behind the Fox. She saw her father standing by the wheel next to another man dressed in a familiar grey suit of clothes with a hat topped by a white plume.

  She gasped in recognition, pulled a pistol from her belt, ran down the gangplank to the dock, and sprinted to the Merlin. Panic caused her heart to pound. Her father had no idea who he had hired! Raif and Ray hurried behind.

  She arrived on the deck of the Merlin and skidded to a stop, raised her pistol, and cocked it. Smoker and Françoise looked at her grinning.

  “Dad, step away from him! He’s a French privateer!” she said as levelly as she could manage.

  “Who, Françoise here?” Smoker said in apparent amazement. “Are you a privateer?” he asked in mock surprise.

  “I have to admit, I have done a little, but I ‘ad to repent when I was visited by an angel,” Françoise replied piously.

  Scarlett looked at the two of them in part horror, part longing and was snapped out of her reverie by the sound of Ray laughing uproariously behind her.

  Chapter 5: Crossing the Atlantic

  The Fox and Merlin were following in the footsteps of Drake and Raleigh and would pick the pockets of England’s foes. God help the Spanish when we get there, Scarlett smiled to herself as they made their way out of the bay at the start of their journey. If nothing else, they looked the part.

  They had enough water and food for three months, which if all went well, would be more than enough to make the trip. The plan was to go after gold, spices, sugar, jewels, pearls, and other rare valuable goods, which could be shipped back to England or sold locally to pay their way.

  They were going to the Caribbean. They had their letters of marque but that wouldn’t mean much over there. How they behaved and the impression they left would be far more important.

  They set sail in mid-October 1661 for Port Royal Jamaica with the aim of reaching the Canaries at the beginning of November when the trade winds would be at their best.

  The voyage down to Ushant was uneventful. The navigation was in the hands of the master and his trusty quadrants. He would observe the sun during the day or Polaris during the night and when he judged that it was approaching its zenith, he would start measuring the angle to the horizon. For sighting the sun, he used something he called a back-observation quadrant. He would stand with his back to the sun and a vane on the device would cast a shadow which he would line up with a slot he observed the horizon through. The resulting angle allowed him to calculate their latitude.

  Scarlett was fascinated by this and although she had only learned how to add, subtract, divide, and multiply, Daniel introduced her to a whole new world of mathematics, and it wasn’t long before she was stood next to the master attempting to take sights herself.

  The challenge came as they came out of a storm in the Bay of Biscay. She gave an order to one of the new bosun’s mates to attend to the flaking of some lines that were strewn untidily across the deck.

  “You want to do ‘ouse keeping. Do it yerself, woman,” the belligerent sailor told her.

  “Are you refusing a direct order?” Scarlett asked dangerously quiet. One of the ex-smugglers tried frantically to signal to the sailor not to take it further and got a stern look from Scarlett for his trouble.

  “I don’t take orders from no woman. ‘Specially a spoilt brat whose dad bought her a ship.”

  “Oh, is that a fact,” Scarlett stated, surprised he hadn’t heard they won the ship from the French Navy, “and who told you that?”

  “Everyone knows it and be too afraid oh yer pa to say it to yer face. Well, he aint ‘ere, so you can get back to yer place in the galley girl.”

  “Get yourself a sword,” Scarlett snapped.

  “You gonna fight me? Why I think I’m just goin’ to spank yer arse for to teach you some respect.” He lunged for her and grasped empty air as she spun away, her sword and dagger appearing in her hands.

  “If you beat me, you can spank me,” she taunted.

  “And if you win?”
>
  “You will be dead.”

  Steven Day was alerted to the trouble by the bosun and rousted out of his berth. He came up on the main deck in time to see the man selecting a cutlass from the rack.

  “Stan Gill, what the fuck do you think you are doing?” he barked.

  “She wants a fight and I am going to show the girl her place!”

  Steven looked at Scarlett, who was swinging her sword to loosen her arm.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said to himself, and louder to the bosun, “we are going to have to change the watch list.”

  It was over quite quickly, really. Stan bulled forward swinging his cutlass like it was a meat cleaver. Scarlett skipped around him, cutting several slashes in his flesh before skewering him through the side as she stepped out of the way of yet another bull-headed charge.

  “Get this offal off my deck,” she snapped as she looked down at the dead man.

  “Anyone else think I should get back in the kitchen?”

  Silence was her answer.

  “Get the men assembled,” then with a thoughtful tilt of her head, “leave that there until after I’ve said my piece.”

  The other watch was rousted out and all the men gathered on deck around the dead man. Scarlett had a crate positioned by the mainmast for her to stand on so she could be seen by everyone.

  “You all signed the charter when you came on this ship and it was made plain that I was the captain.” She looked from face to face, making eye contact with those she didn’t know so well.

  “This piece of shit was of the opinion I only got that because my pa bought me this ship and that I should go back to the kitchen where I belonged. I will tell you all once, this ship was called the Triomphe and belonged to the French Navy before we took it with the Merlin and a lugger. The fight cost my twin brother his eyes.” She reached across to a lanthorn, opened it, and rubbed two fingers over the soot in the glass. She looked at them then drew them across her closed eyes from one temple to the other, leaving a black stain that made her look like she wore a mask.