Free Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown Page A

“They’ve only carronades. A prison is ready to guard itself from within, not from without.”
    Mabbot anchored the Rose fifty yards from where the crowns of foam marked the edge of the enemy’s range. She shouted at Mr. Apples, “Aim well and take your time! Bit by bit!”
    Mr. Apples went down the line of deck cannon, sighting over their maws and cranking them into position himself. Sometimes he would give a cannon a knock with his fist to make its angle perfect.
    It was an eerie thing to watch him so at ease with the enemy’s wrath landing so near. Occasionally I heard the whistle of rifle shot in the air above us, or the crack as a musket ball set itself in a mast. Bound as I was, I could do nothing but make myself as small as possible.
    Mr. Apples was intimate with each of the guns and cajoled and patted them as if tending to a field of dairy cows. Their positions were locked, and the men marked their angles with pencils. Only after Mr. Apples had gone below deck to see to all the other guns did he give the order. “By the numbers and easy!” he shouted. “Fire!”
    One by one, our guns, with a terrible rolling tempo, like the ticking of a monstrous clock, fired on the prison. The blasts were dreadful. I tried to cover my ears, but Jeroboam, still trying to saw through the wood, tugged the chain and I ended up slapping myself into the rail.
    The first bombardment hit the base of the closest tower, making little mark save for a cloud of powdered granite. But what was just a scratch on the surface of the prison grew as each subsequent cannonball clawed at the wound. Mr. Apples’s aim was unerring, and, slowly, a hole opened at the base of the tower. As a boy I had seen fellows stabbing at termite nests for fun. The result here was similar; the prison guards swarmed and scattered in great agitation, unable to prevent the slow erosion of their keep.
    Mabbot, with a mug of hot tea, descended from the poop deck to confer briefly with Mr. Apples, then returned.
    I yelled at Captain Jeroboam over the noise: “Isn’t giving her the Brass Fox unwise?”
    “I let her have this battle so we might take the war.” Jeroboam put his finger to his nose. “We’ll bring back an armada.”
    During the siege, one of the prison’s cannonballs, by fluke of wind or powder, surpassed its range and punched a hole in the planks so near Mabbot that she had to dance to keep from falling in.
    Mr. Apples rushed to her side. “Cap’m?”
    “It’s nothing. Keep at it, Mr. Apples,” Mabbot said, irritated at the spilling of her tea. “Keep at it.”
    After an hour of this inchmeal injury, the tower, haloed in dust, leaned as if considering a more comfortable repose, then collapsed spectacularly, dropping in clusters off the cliff and into the tortured sea.
    Silence and dust followed. Mr. Apples set himself to realigning the guns, then the terrible metronome started again, this time picking away at the adjoining walls. Only when a white flag unfurled from the top of the prison and hung like a parched tongue did Mr. Apples cease firing. Mabbot put aside her tea and checked the breach of her pistols.
    “Trip the mudhook!” Mabbot shouted, and the anchor crew ran for the windlass while the rest readied themselves for battle. The Flying Rose jibed to position in the lee of the cliff, well beyond the arc of the remaining carronades. Longboats were lowered and, full of pirates, made for the beaches.
    Mabbot shouted to the departing crew, “Not a prisoner harmed! Hear me! Don’t touch the prisoners!” before disappearing into her cabin.
    With all the boats gone to shore except Mabbot’s pinnace, the deck was nearly deserted. Jeroboam, wheezing in anticipation, said, “Now’s the moment, Quincy. Now! ”
    With a fierce yank, he broke through the weakened rail and nearly mangled my wrist in the doing. Off he went in a mad dash and I was compelled to shadow him, thinking, as I went, This is the plan? We ran flat-out toward the stern,