Meanwhile on the HMS Boudica

“Captain! We’re being followed by a schooner.”

“Yes, I know. Thank you, that’ll be all.”

“Yes sir.”

Captain Alisdair McAlister stood at the helm of his mighty man’o’war pondering his options. As of now, the schooner had given them no trouble but she flew no colors. Without them, Captain McAlister had no way of knowing if she was friend or foe. As it were, he could feel the eyes of the captain on him as the schooner slowly closed the distance between them.

“Jack?”

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“Yes Captain?”

“Get my spyglass from my cabin.”

“Yes sir!”

“Oh and Jack?”

“Yes sir?”

“Stay out of the sweets. I know you know where I keep them.”

He watched as Jack scurried away. She was so like her mother. The sea was a difficult place for a child but with his wife dead, it was the only place for her. Of course, everyone believed Jack was his son. Jack was short for Jacquline and she was his daughter. She reminded him of himself at her age with her tenacity. His wife, her mother, didn’t have that tenacity. She had died giving Alisdair a son. A son he couldn’t look at without falling into angry dispair.

Jack returned with his spyglass.

“That’ll be all Jack. See if Mr. Grubbs needs you.”

“Aye sir.”

Alisdair didn’t watch Jack scurry away. He didn’t need to. He put the spyglass to his good eye and began to scour the schooner.

“15 maybe 20 guns sir and at least half our crew,” Laef Culpepper, his chief mate, said coming to stand beside him.

“Hmm, yes so I gather. And their captain?”

“He must be in his quarters,” Laef replied.

“Or their captain is a woman.”