The wind gave out after five days, with her engine throttled up, Fletch’s bow parted a flat calm. This far south-southwest there was only sea. With no wind and no reference, the yacht’s speedy progress seemed desperately slow to Bethany as she sat in a chair on the fantail, near the ruins of the officers’ lunch. The only thing on the steward’s collapsible table that had not been chewed or drunk was a bread roll, on account of boredom Bethany grabbed it and buttered it. Eating it, she considered the behavior of her former dining companions who had all gone to their stations without lingering as they usually did. It seemed that the longer Fletch went without encountering anything the more anxious and ungentlemanly they became. The sailors were taking it better: Bethany heard distinctly the clatter of dice against the deck, just out of her sight by the mizzen.
“Sail, ho!” slashed through the humid air.
“Where?!” Granger asked the lookout.
“Two points to starboard, sir!”
Three spyglasses quickly pointed in that direction.
“Looks like a merchantman and she’s flying the Civil Standard. No danger to us.” Granger pronounced. The crew turned despondent. “However, we might as well take a closer look. If she’s going in our direction we can keep the Bexarians off her for a while. Helm, steer to intercept.”
With her crew pressed against the starboard gunnels, Fletch closed most of the verst between herself and the merchant. “Dead slow ahead now. She’s on her sails only and making no headway.” Granger ordered.
The merchant was barquentine rigged, with three wooden masts and an iron hull. The latter was painted white and spoke to her status as a pure sailing ship: there was not a single streak of coal soot on it. She was roughly a third longer than Fletch and looked equally weatherly. Boyle’s spyglass was moving down the line of men at the rail and found Bethany, who had risen from the table at the start of the commotion. Through it she looked over the ship and found the name Tess painted in gold at her prow. Strangely, there was not a sailor on deck though what looked like officers milled about near the helm. Tess’ foremast was particularly interesting. It was square rigged, unlike her other two which were fore-and-aft like Fletch. This meant that men had to climb up to set the sails and Bethany scanned upward along the ladder of rope provided for this purpose. Halfway up she found a sailor seated on some sort of landing. He crossed his arms making an “X” over his chest, repeating the motion every few moments.
Bethany pointed at him with her free hand, “Mr. Granger, what does he mean by that?”
Granger whipped his glass in that direction. A grimace spread across his face, “Mr. Farley! Beat to quarters!”
A marine drummer appeared on deck in a flash. The sailors cleared away from the starboard rail as the remaining marines took up firing positions along it. Nock’s men toppled the steward’s table to clear the traverse of their gun, opened the breach and ran in a shell. Raising a speaking trumpet to his lips, Granger bellowed: “Merchantman Tess, spill your sails! Prepare to be boarded!”
At Tess’ mizzen the Assembly Civil Standard came down as a massive Bexarian Naval Jack went up. Marines sprang from her hatches, leveling rifles, while crews pulled tarps from an eclectic array of small naval guns. When the action ceased both ships, less than 200 arshins apart, stood in silence. Granger broke it: “Bexarian raider! Unless you are also hiding an engine you should strike now!”
Tess answered with a volley from every weapon she could muster. Rifle shots whistled over Fletch’s deck and a few shells dashed themselves against her hull.
Granger shook his head, “Helm! Full ahead!”
Fletch bucked and began to quickly move away from the barquentine. When she was 500 arshins beyond her on a parallel course, Granger called to Nock: “Put a shell right along her, stem to stern, but miss a touch high.”
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Nock complied. His gun launched a shell that just missed the foremast, ripping through several sails as it proceeded along the length of the ship before biting off a bit of her taffrail. Tess’ marines rushed toward her prow to fire on Fletch and a few did so, but her artillery could not be brought to bear.
“Slow ahead and hard to starboard.” Granger instructed. Fletch turned, crossing in front of her enemy which moved at barely one knot.
With a nod from the Sailing Master, Farley barked, “Marines! Fire!” Bunching up along the rail to concentrate their fire the marines loosed a volley from their carbines. The shots impacted the clutch of enemy marines around their ship’s bowsprit, scattering them and killing several. Those that survived moved down their ship’s deck, taking cover against the starboard gunnel. Fletch’s complement did the same as the yacht completed her turn and found herself steaming in the opposite direction. The marines now faced each other across a 50 arshin strip of flat water.
The command “Fire!” echoed from both decks, though in different languages. Pistol and rifle shot pelted the gunnels and found some targets above them. On Tess the officer responsible for the volley caught a bullet in the chin, while on Fletch a ball from an antiquated revolver struck the stomach of a sailor who was quickly dragged to the side of superstructure opposite the fighting. A heavy, sulfurous cloud of gunsmoke wafted across the water from Tess’ deck, proving that at least some of the Bexarian military was still using the old, dirty burning style of powder.
Fletch proceeded past the barquentine until their sterns nearly faced each other. Granger, who was now leaning heavily on his stick after running about the deck, hoarsely ordered:“Stop engine!”His ship drifted to a halt. On the enemy, a party of shooters, a few marines and sailors who had picked up dead marine’s arms, moved to the taffrail and took aim. Nock traversed his deck gun along their line, most flinched.
“Bexarian raider! In 30 seconds I will shoot away your rudder! In one minute I will start in on your masts!” Granger shouted down his speaking trumpet.
Bethany edged out of the hatchway she had been sheltering against and looked around. The deck was remarkably neat compared to the last engagement. A single spent shell from the deck gun rolled smoking about the fantail, a mercifully thin trail of blood ran around the superstructure, and only a handful of rifle cartridges or splinters were to be found underfoot. Farley’s marines reposed against the gunnel, clicking fresh cartridges into their carbines while sailors passed cheap sabers from hand to hand or opened their revolvers, patting their pockets for more rounds. To their dismay, the Bexarian ensign at Tess’ mizzen came down.
“Dead slow astern,” Granger said, then turned to Farley “Consider this a combat boarding, they used orcs in contravention of the treaty, they are not above making a false surrender.”
“Of course, sir.” Farley replied. Brushing past Bethany he went below, emerging moments later with his shotgun. The weapon now sported a nubuck sling stitched with loops for thirty shells. Each one was filled. As Fletch backed to come alongside the raider sailors prepared wide planks and grapnels.
“Place your weapons at your feet, show me empty hands!” Farley demanded. The handful of men on Tess’ deck complied. Grapnels were thrown. After their ropes were made fast the planks were laid from gunnel to gunnel. Farley mounted one of these and slowly crossed, covering each Bexarian in turn with the muzzle of his shotgun.
“Is your captain living?” He asked one.
“Yes. It is me.” A man on the fantail announced in a heavy accent. Though he wore an officer’s shirt and trousers he had no coat and was barefoot. An ornate saber buckled about his waist with two revolvers tucked into the scabbard belt spoke, however, to some level of power.
Farley approached, lowering his shotgun. “Good day. Please order all of your crew on deck so that they might be counted and disarmed.”
The Bexarian stifled a laugh. “Good fellow, this is they, I mean to say this is all.”
“Impossible! You could not work a ship like this with so few men!” Granger, still on Fletch but well within hearing, bellowed.
Turning, the raider captain replied, “True enough! True enough! We use your fellows for that!”
“You have prisoners?” Farley asked.
“The entire crew save for the seventeen we killed when taking her.”
“...and her officers?”
“The captain of marines died fighting, as did the lieutenant and master. The rest are intact.”
Farley nodded, “Right. I will require your arms now.”
The captain handed over each revolver butt first then took off his sword belt. “If the prisoners are in good health you will have this back.” Farley said as he received the sword. Marines collected the remaining weapons and herded their owners against the taffrail. Granger, with a sailor at each arm for balance, crossed the plank and lowered himself onto the barquentine’s deck.
Farley rendezvoused with him and the two moved to the raider’s main hatch, between her fore and middle-masts. The Marine Captain removed a tarpaulin from it and then the cover itself. Tens of heads looked up briefly, then turned away, startled by the rush of sunlight.
“Your captors have surrendered, you may all come on deck.” Granger announced.
“Is the war over?” a sailor asked, haltingly.
Farley peered into the mass of men, “It is for the dogs that took you, now, how do we get you out of there?”
Before this question could be answered the door of a small deck house, concealing a ladder that led below, burst open. A young girl in a blue dress ran from it until she collided with Granger. She hugged his boot.
From the same house came a man of middle age and two more ladies. One, clearly his wife, followed just behind him leading the other, a girl looking a few years shy of 20, by the hand. The man reached Granger and gently broke his youngest girl’s grip on the master’s boot. Picking her up, he began: “Florian Luft, owner and commander. This...” he bobbed the girl in his hands a bit “...is Carolina and may I introduce my dear wife Letitia and my daughter Clotilde.”
The women curtsied. Farley looked them up and down and then glared at the raider captain on the fantail.
“We did not touch them!” The captain protested.
Other than sweat stains on the entire family that spoke of many days without being allowed to bathe, they did look as if they had been treated decently.