Free The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) by Andrew Wareham

turn
sufficiently for them to weather the headland and make their final leg into the
safety of the harbour. He spoke very good English and they could understand him
easily.
    Smith clapped on all sail, left the sloop with a
prize crew of four aboard and instructions to follow in their wake.
    They found seven vessels in the bay, six of them
heavily laden island brigs and schooners; the seventh, also a brig, inshore of
them all and sheltered by them, waited a few minutes until Star was committed
and actually in the horns of the bay before clapping on all sail, at least
fifty men appearing in the rigging, and heading directly towards the Star.
Belatedly, Smith noticed that the wind seemed quite strong just here, and even
the clumsiest of merchant hulls could have held a southerly tack. The Frenchman
pointed up a little more and disclosed seven portlids rising and a broadside of
eight or nine pound cannon running out.
    Star could not tack without opening her quarter to
that broadside; there was insufficient room in the bay to wear; if she tried to
cross the brig’s bows she was as likely as not to be rammed, for being too
slow. Blaine staggered on deck, assessed the situation and shouted a series of
meaningless orders, hopelessly gone.
    Smith ignored his captain, called the chaser to
shoot and the larboard broadside to run out, hoping to cause enough damage to
slow the French sufficiently to scrape past and away, to run, although he
doubted it was possible. They had no grape – it had been too expensive – and
could not really hope to cut up her rigging sufficiently to slow her, but he
could see no alternative. They were unlikely to come out of this alive he
feared – the Coles’ activities on shore guaranteed that they would be treated
as pirates and hanged out of hand if they were taken.
    Their own broadside did very little harm that they
could see, while the French fired seven aimed shots into their foremast, high
and precise and bringing down the foretopsail yard. They slowed instantly.
    “Helm over, Jack,” Tom called, “ram ‘er, get on
board before they can hit us. We might do a bit more damage that way.”
    Smith shrugged. “All hands to board!”
    He swung the helm hard over, sails flapping in
confusion, crabbed down on the French bows a couple of minutes before her own
boarders expected to be in action.
    Tom led his party over the rail, hauling out his
pistols and firing into the sixty or seventy men milling in the waist, sorting
themselves out into an organised defence. He heard the horse-pistols cough
beside him and a four-pounder fired from Star’s deck. He had just enough time
to close the gap, to run into the French before they could get onto the front
foot and start to press forward with their superior numbers. He drew his hanger
and gripped it in both hands, swinging it like a butcher’s pole-axe and
roaring.
    There was an officer at the head of the French,
sword held in classical fencing mode; Tom slashed and missed, ducked, twisted
to one side and kicked him between the legs as he lunged and swiped down at his
head as he doubled over, a great meaty crunch rewarding his efforts. To his
left another swordsman was offering a high parry to Joseph’s cutlass; a slash
at waist height opened his guts, left him screaming. A matelot not a foot away,
a head butt into his face and knee up, brawling, gutter fighting, kick him as
he dropped then lunge with his hanger at the half-turned back of another who
was cutting at one of the freemen. The French were navy, regulars who knew the
correct ways of doing things and expected to be met by formed ranks with
cutlasses properly opposed; they were taken aback by the gutter rats swarming
over them.
    Pushing forward, never letting them get organised,
driving them back so that they thought they were losing; kicking, screaming,
gouging, clawing just as much as using their swords; never letting them use
their numbers and discipline and training.
    The horse pistols fired