“You see that, Ned?”
“See what, Uncle Edmund?”
“To the south, two sails, flying English flags.”
The little boy turned to face the direction his uncle was looking. They both watched as the two massive ships rode smoothly through the calm sea, parting the waters with ease as their sails billowed in the wind, St. George’s Cross fluttering close behind.
“So they’re on our team?”
Edmund pondered for a moment whether telling his seven-year-old nephew that adults can lie too would make the boy’s father, John, frustrated with him, but if John wanted to shove Ned onto a boat with him and spend his days teaching his favorite son how to be the sole inheritor of the farm, then Edmund could make the decisions on how Ned was to be raised.
“That’s what they want us to think, my boy, and while they are sailing in carracks like our fine girl The Christofer here, presumably so they can say they’re also privateers, there is something very distinctly different.”
“What’s different about them, Uncle?”
“See how low they are in the water?”
“Yeah. So what?”
Edmund gave him a glare. He’d need to have a word with his crewmates about using their manners around children.
“Erm, I mean, yes, Uncle Edmund, I see that they are lower in the water. What does that mean for us?”
“It means that they are not looking for cargo, but rather, are full of it. Probably Spaniards delivering military supplies.”
“Spaniards are the bad guys, right?”
Once again, the question of how to teach a child the nuances of the real world crossed Edmund’s mind, but while the full explanation would go over the little one’s head, something approaching the truth would do.
“They are not the ones paying us. So yes, the bad guys.”
“Well then what are you waiting for? Go get ‘em, Uncle!”
“I don’t think that would be advisable,” said Edgar, the first mate, walking up to join Edmund and Ned on the command deck.
“Why? You don’t think Uncle Edmund is gonna go out and kick their asses?”
Another glare from Edmund.
“Go out and defeat them in honorable naval combat.”
Edgar, always quick to defend the child, responded, “Don’t be so harsh on the boy, Edmund. He learned that language from you and you know it.”
“And look where that got me,” replied Edmund. “A first mate without a brave bone in his body. The orders are to get closer but don’t engage.”
“Unlike Pilate, you won’t be able to wash your hands of this when it goes sour, Captain.”
“Pilate?”
“The man who— ah, blast. You really ought to go to mass one of these days. It’ll keep you from being so grumpy all the time.”
“I already did my work for a ticket to the pearly gates,” Edmund responded smugly.
“Oh did you now?”
“Indulgences run a pretty penny these days, but I made sure to get one.”
Edgar looked at Edmund suspiciously. Edmund did not flinch, as this was quite the common occurrence. After a few seconds too long, Edgar let out a sigh and went to relay the message.
“What are indulgences, Uncle?”
“To be honest, I don’t really know. All I know is that I bought one and those uppity religious types stopped being on my ass all the time.”
Ned raised an eyebrow at Edmund.
“My rear end, is what I meant to say.”
Ned nodded a very satisfactory nod, knowing that since all rules had been applied equally, the world was once again at peace. Or so Edmund thought. It could just be the boy being happy to get one over on an adult.
“Cap’n,” cried Geoffrey, the man in the crow’s nest, “we’re in range. Shall we start firing?”
“Hoist the flag and let loose one volley. When they show their true colours, head us northeast.”
“Just one volley, Uncle? I thought we were going to kick their ‘rear end.’”
“Oh, we will, but one at a time. I’m pretty sure that while they are both holding cargo, if you look at the construction, one ship is more of a merchant vessel and the other more of a warship. Just as they are fair game to us, we are legal prizes to them as well. The warship will want a bounty, while the merchant will lack a spine.”
Ned nodded as if he understood all of it, but Edmund knew that, as with most things, a man only understands what occurs after the occurrences have had their occurring.
“Loose arrows!”
There was something satisfying about the twang of English longbows ringing out through the ocean air, whatever some might say for those new-fangled cannons. The same bows that cut down the French cavalry at Crécy and Agincourt would win England this feud with the Spanish.
Just as Edmund suspected, the false flag went down and the Spanish colours went up: both ships proudly proclaiming their loyalty to the King of Spain, both afraid to break international law by not having the correct flag once a battle commenced.
“Port now! To the northeast!”
The ship groaned as she swung to the left, picking up speed as the wind filled her sails.
“Take off the bonnets!”
This was one of Edmund’s favorite tricks. The bonnets, extra strips of canvas laced to the foot of the sails to catch more wind, could be taken off to slow the ship, masking her true speed, as a missing bonnet was hard to spot at a distance.
As the tense seconds of the initial exchange dragged to minutes, Edmund could see the whole crew, even himself, itching with anticipation. As he had predicted, one of the Spanish vessels gave chase while the other followed more cautiously.
“Uncle! They’re gaining on us!”
“Fret not, my boy. This is just our setup ere we place our feet to their posteriors.”
Ned squinted at the length and complexity of the last word while Edgar rolled his eyes, though Edmund could see the corners of the first mate’s mouth turn ever so slightly upward. Before he could give a response, the crew’s rabble started to rise and one man shouted,
“Cap’n, they’re in shooting distance!”
“Archers ready, and turn hard to starboard!”
The men took their stations, the wood strained and creaked against the turn, and the ship wheeled around to put the Spaniards in their broadsides.
“Loose!”
The volley flew with deadly precision. The Spanish, caught off guard, were quite unprepared for the hail of arrows coming their way. The carrack was understaffed for a supposed war vessel to start with, and the rain of death took them far below operational capacity. If they didn’t put their white flag up now, they would soon.
“Reattach bonnets and hunt down the other!”
The chase did not take long. In fact, even before Edmund’s ship was in firing range, the other vessel had already given up. He dropped off Edgar and some men to take care of them and to explain how things were to progress if they wanted to keep their heads. Seeing the conversation moving smoothly, he returned to the Christofer and brought her alongside the carrack littered with dead men bristling with arrows.
While some men waxed on about the glory of battle and of a heroic death, Edmund loved nothing more than the rush of telling defeated enemies their place in life. Stepping off the plank and onto the enemy ship, Edmund looked around and saw the terror of merchants who had just learned the reality of war. These men were not soldiers, barely sailors even, just rich fools who had so magnanimously decided to hand over their livelihoods to Edmund.
Edmund strode right past them and they did nothing. These merchants, like most, lacked any evidence of a patriotic bone in their bodies; not one of them looked like the thought of rebellion had crossed his mind. The hatches came up and Edmund looked down into the hold, and then kept looking, because a man ought to savour these things.
“Well?” said Ned, who had followed him across the plank the moment there was nobody standing at the plank to tell him not to.
“Wool, and a lot of it too.”
“Wait, we did all that for stuff you get off sheep? Uncle, where’s the gold? The treasure?”
“The king we’re fighting for already has mountains of gold. This here is the finest wool in the west, not to mention the iron lying under it. Every nail, anchor, and sword in Christendom wants to be made from Spanish iron.”
“I guess,” said Ned dejectedly, staring at the deck and kicking his feet.
Edmund put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s alright. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Ned rolled his eyes.
Edmund sighed. “Come. There are celebrations to be had!” He started back towards the gangway, but Ned was not moving. Instead, he stared at the bodies strewn all along the deck, riddled with arrows.
“Did it hurt them?”
“Yes.”
Edmund let that sit, because it was true and the boy had asked, and then he put a hand on the back of Ned’s neck and turned him toward the plank.
“Has anybody ever beaten you, Uncle?”
“Boy, there isn’t a man on the sea who can.”
He had meant it as a joke. Ned believed it entirely. And Edmund, looking back over four hundred sacks of wool and a deck full of dead men who had thought two to one was good odds, found that he mostly believed it too.