Free HMS Athena: A Charles Mullins novel (Sea Command Book 4) by Richard Testrake Page B

before putting Athena about. This could give the pirate a chance to come up against their beam and unload her boarders, not a welcome prospect. Consequently, Athena’s crew must be ready and armed. With the schooner closing as rapidly as she was, there was no time to completely clear the ship for action. Consequently, the painting stages were dropped over the side as soon as the hands had scrambled aboard. The schooner was almost upon them before Athena had set sail and began to move. As soon as the rudder began to bite, and the ship had a little way he ordered the ship about and asked Mister Howard to have the ports opened.
    The schooner had no sooner fired her forward four-pounder gun, when the 6-pounders mounted in Athena’s stern opened fire. Both rounds struck the schooner in the forward starboard quarter as she began to overtake. The schooner’s crew, alerted to their danger now, attempted to go about. Before she could do so however, her way brought her alongside Athena and the guns on both vessels began to thunder.
    The schooner had three guns on her starboard broadside, a pair of four-pounders as well as a six. Athena however had a dozen nine-pounders, as well as a pair of thirty-two pound carronades. The broadside from these weapons devastated the fragile schooner. The pirate’s foremast came down and she went dead in the water. Had she been a legal combatant, her commander might well have decided to haul down his flag to save lives.
    The schooner however, had no commission or letter of marque. Her captain and crew were pirates, subject to the death penalty when captured. All of them knew their lives would be forfeit, just as soon as they were taken ashore and brought before a magistrate. Most of them would fight as long as they had breath in their bodies.
     
    The guns of the pirate were soon knocked out by fire from Athena. Mister Farver, blood-lust in his eyes, wished to board the enemy and defeat the buccaneers hand to hand. Even without their big guns though, many pirates were still on their feet, fighting with hand weapons. Not wishing to have any more of his men injured, Mullins decided to lay off the schooner’s beam and pound her with grape and case shot until her fire ceased.
    After return fire from the schooner ceased, Mullins had the sailing master bring Athena alongside the wreck and boarders dropped down on her deck. The captain was one of the first to drop onto her, followed by Midshipman Archer, his dirk in one hand and a seaman’s cutlass in the other.
    Few pirates were still on their feet and those either surrendered at once or were shot where they stood. The captured vessel was sinking rapidly, so Mullins dispatched Archer and a party of seamen to search below for any person still alive.
    Upon their return, the victors were astonished to see the party bearing what looked at first like two bundles of rags. It was soon apparent thought that these bundles were actually women, although badly injured. The person in the arms of a burly bosun’s mate might have been a woman of middle age, although her face had been savagely smashed and the rags covering her were soaked with blood.
    The other woman could have been younger, but she too had been badly mauled. The younger one seemed to be conscious since her one open eye followed them, but she remained mute.
    Only when Mullins went over and started to put his hand on her shoulder did she recoil and whimper. The other woman seemed to be unconscious or dead. Mullins first thought was to call for the surgeon, but there was little time for that. The schooner was settling fast in the water, and all of the survivors needed to get off her at once.
     
    Now on board Athena, the women were taken into Mullin’s quarters to be examined by the surgeon in some privacy. When Mister Adkins came out to report his findings, he took Mullins aside, away from the throng wishing to learn the details of the women’s ordeal, and quietly explained. Both women were now awake