Chapter 3

onboard the rosemary

Man overboard! Man overboard!”

The abrupt shouts startled Samuel out of his sleep—if it could be called sleep. For days, Samuel and the surviving crew members of the Rosemary lived in a nightmare. As he stirred, he felt mildly surprised someone actually stood on watch to shout out the alarm. The crew still had assignments, of course, but with life ebbing out of the ship, fewer and fewer had either the energy or will to complete their duties, and Samuel had no desire to enforce those rules.

After stepping out of the captain’s cabin, the darkness told him that night had fallen. The time of day hardly mattered though, since time quickly lost more and more meaning to him. As soon as Samuel breached the quarterdeck, the officer of the watch approached him. “Captain, sir! Two persons spotted overboard just off the port stern. I heard the splashing a few moments ago.”

Samuel still adjusted to his new title of captain. Considering the circumstances under which he received it, he could not covet it. He reached the port stern and gazed out into the calm cove of the barren island. Behind him he could hear the bustling of other crew members whose curiosity conquered fatigue and who came to investigate the commotion. The light from the waning crescent moon revealed the silhouettes of two forms no more than a ship’s length beyond them, between the island and the Rosemary.

“Deserters?” Samuel questioned the officer, then without waiting to hear a response, he said loudly enough for the rest of the crew to hear, “Let them have the island then. The accursed plague that gave us all our trouble came from there anyway.”

“I don’t believe they are part of our crew, Captain,” the officer spoke hesitantly.

“What?”

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but no one—as far as I could tell—was above decks before I caught sight of them, sir. And ever since I called ‘man overboard,’ they’ve been swimming toward the ship, not the island.”

“Knew they were caught, and so they turned around to swim back to the ship,” Samuel mused to himself.

“I suspect not, sir,” the officer mumbled with reserve.

“Well then, explain your reasons and be done with it,” Samuel retorted on edge. Neither his body nor mind felt fit for such exertion over a matter he cared little about considering the current state of his crew.

“Well, sir, it’s just that I could hear them talking as they came toward us and one of them sounds … well, Captain, one of them sounds like a woman.”

In spite of his obvious exhaustion, this last statement forced Samuel to perk up. “But we didn’t have a woman on board our ship. How could … ?”

“Shhh, listen, Captain … they’re speaking again.”

The clear voices carried over the water easily enough to where Samuel and the crew eavesdropped. “This is incredible, Charlotte,” one of the voices sputtered between strokes. “If the water didn’t taste salty, I’d have thought you knocked me out and threw me into that pond over by County Hall.”

“Ha,” a silvery voice responded haltingly as the two made progress toward the ship, “I think the pond by the county hall would have a difficult time fitting a boat that size.” The officer of the watch dropped all formalities and nudged his captain after Charlotte’s reply. Had Samuel not been so surprised to hear a female voice seemingly out of nowhere, he would have chastised the officer. As it was, however, he only furrowed his eyebrows and continued to listen.

“I don’t mean to complain, but would it have been too much to ask for us to land directly on the boat instead of a football field away from it?” Besides the difficulty of explaining their mere presence, Samuel and the officer stood mystified by their strange conversation marked by unfamiliar words and accents.

“Oh, Eric, you make it sound like darts or something. You think I control precisely where we land? Maybe it’s because you fidgeted so much before the moon came up completely. Or maybe you just needed a good douse of water. This is the first time I’ve done this too, you know.”

“Well, let’s just get one thing straight here, I’m not the one who—”

“Here we are,” Charlotte cut him off, looking up at the goggling captain, the officer, and the rest of the crew. “Are you going to give us a hand up there, or are you going to sit and stare?” Charlotte’s matter-of-fact way of approaching an already indescribable event only did more to freeze the speechless crew. “Look, you can’t pretend you don’t see us here because we heard the guy call out ‘man overboard’ … though his statement wasn’t completely correct, since I’m not a man. I’m willing to overlook that for now.”

Samuel wondered for a moment whether he was truly hallucinating, his dehydration coming to a point where he imagined this whole scenario in his mind. He decided that this seemed far too bizarre for his own mind to concoct. Even if he were hallucinating, at least he found comfort knowing that the whole crew hallucinated the same thing as well. A splash from the ever-dauntless Charlotte brought him back to his senses.

“Don’t just stand there, fish them out!” Samuel took hope in seeing that the crew’s sorry physical state still did not restrain their curiosity. A couple ropes fell into the water and the next thing Samuel knew the two swimmers stood on deck before him. Besides their strange clothing and looks, Samuel noted that the two were surprisingly young.

Although he could tell the crew yearned to know more about the strangers, Samuel felt that discretion would be the best course of action. “I want blankets and dry clothes for these two, and then you will all go back below to get your rest. You two, come with me.”

The captain’s cabin in the Rosemary was not large, so when Eric and Charlotte squeezed in they took up most of the extra space. In the mean time, crew members went to bring clothing. Samuel watched them in amazement for a moment. In spite of her ragged condition, the girl stood with a pleased look on her face, her bearing confident as ever. The boy looked around with interest. His eyes glittered upon seeing the ship’s maps and navigating instruments sitting out on the desk.

“My name is Captain Samuel Wesley, and this is the merchant ship Rosemary. May I ask whom we had the pleasure of hauling out of the sea?”

The antithesis of bashfulness, Charlotte eagerly gave her and Eric’s names. Samuel’s next question, however, pressed for the answer that intrigued him most. “And now, if I may ask, how did you end up in the sea between an island and our ship?”

“Well, that’s the complicated thing …” Eric started out. “You see, when I first met Charlotte, it was—”

“… on the island,” Charlotte finished. Eric looked sharply at Charlotte. Samuel noticed a meaningful look pass between them. “We were both marooned there.”

“You were marooned on that island?” Samuel motioned toward the dark mass out the windows of his cabin.

“The very same,” Charlotte replied.

“But we’ve been anchored here for days. The island is not large or with vegetation. It’s a wonder we didn’t find you before.”

Eric sighed while looking back at Charlotte. She refused to flinch. “That’s obviously because we were hidden during the day. We didn’t want the scorching sun to take away our energy.”

Though it was a scanty explanation, before Samuel could follow up, Charlotte continued, “Then while we were looking for more food and water on the island tonight, we saw the light from the ship. You know the rest. Of course, you did keep us in the water a bit longer than necessary, but I’m willing to forget about that as long as I don’t spend the rest of the night sopping wet.”

The diversion worked. “The men are seeing to it that you get dry clothing, though I regret, Miss Charlotte, that they may not find suitable clothing for a lady such as yourself.”

Charlotte did her best not to laugh. “I’ll have to make do, I suppose. Though I don’t know if it would be too much to ask to get a cup of water with the dry clothing. That seawater sure makes me thirsty.”

Samuel smacked his dry mouth just at her request, but before he could offer his apologies, Eric jumped in. “I don’t think that’s an option, Charlotte. The ship seems to have fewer sailors than it should, and those that it has look sick and weak. They’re probably pretty low on food and water.”

Taken aback at this statement, Samuel took a second before nodding to confirm. Yet even Eric seemed puzzled by his own response, as if he did not expect to have made it. Only Charlotte seemed unsurprised. She smiled. Samuel finally found his tongue. “Um … that is precisely the issue at hand. I wish I could say that we rescued you from that island, but we happen to be in quite the predicament ourselves.” Samuel focused on Eric. “You noticed the state of the crew. The sad thing is that they are the ones who survived. Over half the crew was taken by a disease that came as a result of some infected water we took from this island … I see that you were not affected by it …” Samuel raised his eyebrow.

“Luckily we had some fresh water with us when we were marooned, but we just ran out of the last of it when we saw your ship,” Charlotte was quick to answer. “But that’s terrible about your crew. Is there no place nearby where we can get help?”

Samuel sighed. “That is where the problem compounds. We stopped at this island because we were driven away from the only port of refuge, a day away.”

“Driven away?” Charlotte asked. “How?”

“A storm,” Eric suddenly jumped in again, much to his own surprise. “You must have run into a storm. The broken stuff on the deck of the ship suggests that you went through some bad weather.”

Once again, Eric’s comment caused Samuel to pause and wonder at this boy’s insight. “Actually, we did hit a storm to the east … gales of the like I’ve never seen before … that storm must have been what marooned you on the island. Am I right?” His query left Eric tongue-tied. Samuel noted the delay, though he moved on without a reply. “Well, no matter. The storm was actually not what kept us from the port. We were chased and barely avoided being captured by a pirate guarding the channel leading to port.”

At the sound of the word “pirate,” Charlotte glanced over at Eric, who returned the gaze with widened eyes. The intriguing silence that followed eventually broke with a knock at the door. The clothes for Charlotte and Eric had arrived. Samuel directed them to separate quarters where they could change. Then he gave orders to see that the crew members provided them with places to sleep.

A

As soon as she changed into her dry clothes, Charlotte searched out Eric. He wore a dark jacket and pants over a tunic that must have been white before time faded it into a grainy yellow. He pulled his similar-colored socks up to his knees to compensate for the pants, which only reached to the middle of his shins, in the way of most sailor clothing. His black, scuffed shoes enveloped the bottom of his socks. Although the clothing clearly belonged to a larger person, Charlotte noticed that Eric seemed more comfortable in it than in his own clothes. She saw that, even though his shoulders still sagged slightly, Eric appeared somehow taller. “Well … ?” Charlotte asked.

Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. You look good, though the pants are a little big.” The large pants and tunic rested broadly on her, but she donned them as if someone tailored them specifically for her. She had used a stray rope to tie down the extra fabric near her waist in a way that looked almost fashionable.

“I’m not talking about clothes, Eric,” Charlotte responded.

“What?”

“You heard him mention a pirate … well, now is your chance.”

Eric shook his head. “Charlotte, I’ll admit this: as soon as we stepped onto this ship it felt like … oh, I don’t know how to describe it … it was amazing. It felt like coming home. I noticed things, I had a feel for things, I … I just felt at home. So, I believe that I was naturally born to at least have something to do with sailing ships. But no one, not even a natural-born pirate hunter, would be dumb enough to go against a pirate in a little ship like this the way it is now.” Eric saw that Charlotte verged on disagreeing, so he cut her off. “Even with a full crew and no damage done to the ship, this is just a little trading boat. She probably has a couple guns at the most. It’s mind-blowing that they outran the pirate to this point. This ship was not made for hunting. If anything, it’s made for being hunted. That is not just my opinion as a teenager; that’s my opinion as … well, as a natural-born pirate hunter.”

Charlotte acquiesced to Eric’s convincing statement. “Well then, where does that leave us? Are we just going to sit and wither away with this crew? Have we no other options? Frankly, I expected a bit more than a slow and painful death when I decided to come with you, Eric.”

“Maybe if you would have dropped us off in a situation more friendly to a pirate hunter’s needs …”

“It doesn’t work that way, Eric. What did you expect? Did you expect to be transported straight to the wheel of a huge ship with a crew already prepared and a helpless pirate right in front of you waiting to be caught?” Eric thought on this and then shook his head slowly. Charlotte continued, “No, I hope not … if that were the case, then I could be the pirate hunter, pretty much anyone could. You are given the opportunity, but it’s up to you to take advantage of it. As you’ve already been told, there’s a pirate in the area. Now it’s up to you to do something about it.”

Eric threw up his hands. “Well, I’ve already told you that it can’t be done with this ship and this crew. I don’t know what you expect me to do.”

“Expect you to do?” Charlotte restated, a little frustrated, “Eric, you may not be able to hunt a pirate right now, but you know what I do expect you to do?” Eric shook his head and Charlotte replied, “Be useful.”

This declaration forced Eric to think. Humbled, he responded, “Okay, you’re right. Doing nothing isn’t helping a thing. I don’t know what kind of use I can be, but I’ll go to the captain and figure out what’s going on. Then I’ll see if there is anything I could help him with.”

Charlotte smiled. “That’s all I’m asking.”

A

When Eric approached the captain’s cabin he saw no light. He about retreated, but he almost heard Charlotte’s reprimanding tone ask him why he didn’t even try, so he reluctantly set himself before the door and knocked.

“Yes?” a faint voice called out from within.

“Sorry to disturb you, Captain. I can talk to you in the morning if that works better.”

A pause ensued long enough that Eric backed away from the door. Suddenly the latch opened and a weak, pale looking Samuel stuck his face out. “Master Eric?” Eric nodded and much to his surprise, the captain opened the door and motioned him in. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I didn’t want to keep you from sleeping … I just kind of wondered if you could show me the situation we’re in right now on a map or something. I can talk to you tomorrow morning.”

Samuel probably would have laughed had he not lacked so much energy. “I wasn’t sleeping, Master Eric. I haven’t slept much lately.”

“You haven’t?”

“No. In fact, I keep on thinking about exactly what you came to ask me about, and I keep on finding myself in another dead end. I would welcome a fresh viewpoint.”

Eric shook his head. “I really doubt I could help with anything, but I am kind of curious to see what’s going on.”

“Then come over to my desk.” Samuel shuffled to his maps and instruments and lit a lamp. Had Eric studied Samuel carefully in the pale lamplight, he would have seen a tall man in a crumpled officer’s uniform, curly dark hair that matched his chocolate complexion—a Creole in looks and an Englishman in manners. But Eric found little interest in the man standing next to him, only in the map that lay before him. He instantly devoured it with his eyes as if he feared it might disappear any second. Samuel observed Eric before almost apologetically disrupting his trance.

“As near as I can gather, we are here,” Samuel pointed to an empty space on the map, “anchored next to a previously uncharted island. It’s small enough to have evaded some maps. Port Raleigh is to the west, here.” Samuel’s finger slid across the map to where the continent’s main land met the sea. “Of course, our problem is that to get to Port Raleigh, it’s necessary to go through the San Fernando Channel, between the mainland and the Montes de Oca island chain.” Slightly to the north and east of Port Raleigh, Eric noted that the land came out into a sharp peninsula that was abruptly interrupted by San Fernando Channel. Past the channel, along the same line as the peninsula, the land continued in the form of five or so islands, the biggest of the islands being the one closest to the mainland’s peninsula. Everywhere between the islands, except in the channel, Eric noticed scattered dots and faint, curving lines in the sea. Before he could say anything, Samuel answered his unasked question. “These right here represent shoals … impassable. As you can see they extend north from the Montes de Oca for a little more than thirty leagues.”

Eric nodded, completely immersed in the map. “That’s why Port Raleigh has such a strong position. It’s easy to defend.”

“Precisely,” Samuel said, “but in this case, it works against itself. If there is an enterprising and clever enough pirate, he can close off shipping to Raleigh completely.”

Eric pointed to San Fernando Channel. “All he has to do is camp out right here and wait for the ships to come to him.” Samuel nodded. Eric furrowed his eyebrow. “But Port Raleigh should be prepared for that sort of thing by having some war ships on hand to protect the town. That would have to be one brave pirate.”

“Brave, yes, but I think I would better describe them as bold.”

“Them?”

“Yes. The pirates blocking off San Fernando Channel are the Willard Pirates, twin brothers alike not only in looks but in their notorious reputations. Only someone such as those two would have the capability of gathering enough force and instigating enough fear to pull off something such as this.”

“Pirate twins …” Eric muttered to himself quietly. Suddenly he could feel a strange sensation of excitement, thrill in his blood. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. More than anything, he wanted to go out and face these pirates. He wanted to go out and catch them, anticipate their cruel deeds, outsmart them, and place them in chains and bring them to justice. The thoughts stirred within him for a moment before he recovered his senses. He had to remind himself of what he had just argued to Charlotte: he didn’t have the resources to face these pirates. He redirected his thoughts to figure out how to get the Rosemary back to port where there should be enough resources needed for such a venture. He scanned the map with new purpose.

“So Port Raleigh is the closest settlement?”

“It’s Port Raleigh or nothing, considering our stores and the crew’s physical state.”

“And the only way to Port Raleigh is through the San Fernando Channel here?”

Samuel shrugged. “If we were to circumnavigate the island chain and shoals, there is a passage to the north, but—”

“But that passage would most likely be covered by the pirates as well,” Eric nodded sagely, finishing Samuel’s statement for him. Samuel could not help but be impressed by this boy’s insight. Eric continued, “Even if they weren’t covering that passage, they wouldn’t necessarily have to. Whoever watched the San Fernando Channel could also keep an eye on the north passage. It’d be a simple matter to just spot them coming and cut them off.”

“Yes, but I’d wager they do have someone patrolling the north passage anyway. The Willard Twins have traveled in larger fleets lately. They would have enough ships to cover both entries.”

Eric smiled and nodded. “These pirates certainly know what they’re doing. How many ships, then, do you think they have?”

Samuel thought for a moment. “Three or four. They wouldn’t need any more than that. There would only be one or two Royal Navy ships stationed in Port Raleigh at any given time. So four ships, plus their reputation, would be enough to contain that threat. Any more ships than that would be too many men to divide plunder with.”

Eric nodded. “So the Twins would be captains of two of the ships and two other pirates in the others.”

“Right.”

Eric realized something. “That means the two junior pirates will probably be doing the patrolling. One of them here at San Fernando Channel and the other at the north passage. The Twins only need to be in a single place to keep an eye on things.” Samuel looked on, intrigued, as Eric worked this through in his mind. “What better place than this first island in the Montes de Oca chain? It puts them right in the center of the action. They can leave it and be to either of the channels at a moment’s notice, plus they can keep an eye on the junior pirates.” Eric’s eyes glittered. “That cove on the far side of the island looks like it would be just about right. Maybe big enough for the egos of two pirate brothers and their ships.”

Samuel cracked a smile through his dry lips. “Bravo, Eric. I couldn’t have deduced it better myself.”

Eric permitted himself a self-congratulatory smile before he fell back into his pensive mode. “Of course, that still hasn’t fixed our problem.”

“No, it hasn’t. In fact, it furthers the case that we are in more of a bind than even before.”

“But …” Eric thought out loud, “… but we do know where they are most likely anchored, and that helps.”

“We’ll need more than just that kind of advantage,” Samuel remarked grimly. “Even with a full crew and an undamaged ship, we’d be sitting ducks for any one of those pirate ships, let alone four of them.”

“Yes, you’re right … we wouldn’t stand a chance going head-to-head with the pirates. But the ship isn’t in too bad of shape. I saw things scattered around, but the ship itself appears to be okay, and it seems to have a fast design. With a head start, it might be able to outrun the pirates. You outran the ship guarding the channel, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but in that case we were running away from the pirates … not attempting to run through them.”

Eric pressed further, “But what if we caught them off guard?”

“I don’t know how we could accomplish that when they know there are only two ways to get to Port Raleigh and they’re already guarding both of them.”

Eric nodded and carefully pored over the map in front of him before venturing a question. “What about these shoals?” He pointed to the shoals connecting the Montes de Oca island chain. “There has to be a way through them. I mean, you can’t tell me that along this huge stretch there isn’t a single spot where the Rosemary could slip by.”

Samuel thought for a moment. “The shoals are not well-known since the two channels are obviously the most practical ways in and out. But … but I wouldn’t doubt that there are several breaks in the shoals. Especially at this point, closest to the main island,” Samuel indicated the spot just north of the biggest island of the chain. “The map depicts the shoals as relatively skinny there, giving more likelihood for breaks.” Eric’s eyes lit up, but Samuel did not seem to share his enthusiasm. “While that may be the case, it does not improve our situation at all.”

“Except that if we get through there, we can catch them off guard.”

“Off guard maybe, but not in an advantageous spot. While it places us west of most of the pirates, it will also place us north of at least three of the ships … and we would still need to go south to reach Port Raleigh.” Eric was quiet. “It’s a good idea though—nearly worth a shot.”

“Wait,” Eric said, and pointed to the island on the map. “If the Twins have their base in this cove, then they probably wouldn’t see us until we’d be pretty much past them.”

Samuel looked at the map, nodding slowly. “You may be right … but that’s not certain. And besides, you’re forgetting the ship that we do know about, here in the San Fernando Channel. That ship would have plenty of time to spot us and cut us off. Even if the rogue doesn’t keep his eye on the west, which he probably does, one of the Twins could fire a cannon to alert him once they spot us from the cove.”

“Right,” Eric conceded, though his morale stayed high. “But if everything else is true, then we only need to get past that last ship before we’re home free.”

Samuel paused to marvel at the confidence of this fascinating stranger. “I’m guessing you think that you have a way to do that?”

Eric’s smile broadened.