Chapter 9

exchange

Walter barely believed his fortune at staying alive as long as he had. He recalled how the raging Joshua woke up in Port Raleigh and realized his status as a captive for the first time in his life. The heavy iron chains rattled loudly as the veteran pirate swore, cussed, and blasphemed. Walter knew that a hefty portion of that rage went his direction because of his obvious betrayal. But he also knew that underneath, most of Joshua’s rage came from embarrassment—the fact that after avoiding capture all his life, the shackles on him came not by swarms of Royal Navy ships or legions of soldiers, but by the cunning of an unknown and poorly equipped sloop captain.

Seeing Joshua’s wrath made Walter reticent to be the messenger who negotiated an exchange with Jedediah. Facing a Willard Twin at this moment did not tempt him in the slightest. He informed Captain Francis of his opinion on the matter, but then the astute captain quickly responded—as if according to script—that otherwise he would be chained up next to Joshua for the rest of the day and they would gather up his body later. Walter marveled at Eric’s ability to find a way to motivate him to do the last thing he would ever think to do. Walter agreed to negotiate.

While on his way to see Jedediah, Walter knew that the vicious Twin would kill him for his participation in this whole affair. He harbored no shred of doubt, as he climbed on board the ship, that it would be the last conversation of his life. Walter found Jedediah brewing in his cabin, his jaw clenched, his eyes burning—clearly Joshua’s crew had related to him the fate of his brother. Wasting no time, the doomed mate dispensed the terms to Jedediah: the prisoner exchange would take place the next mid-morning. They would meet at the opening to the cove in longboats. Jedediah’s boat would remain deep in the cove for the duration of the exchange while the other two pirate ships were to be just visible over the northern horizon, away from the action. Walter trembled as soon as he uttered the conditions. Jedediah stewed for brief moments afterward.

“Agreed.”

Walter hardly believed what he heard. He stood waiting for his mind to stop playing tricks on him. After a couple of seconds, Jedediah lifted up his eyes, bloodshot with anger, and a growl emanated from his lips. “I said, ‘agreed.’ Now deliver the message while you’ve got a mouth to do it with!”

The trip back to Port Raleigh only furthered Walter’s disbelief at living to see another minute. Upon reporting to Captain Francis, he was interrogated by the young captain about Jedediah’s specific reaction, down to even his facial expression and how long exactly it took for him to respond.

Walter did not know what to expect from the upcoming exchange, but he felt certain that neither side expected things to occur as planned. As they placed him in his prison cell—to his relief, far away from Joshua Willard—Walter finally had time to consider his own unenviable fate.

A

Eric made the terms and the pirate accepted them. Eric commanded two ships, one confiscated from pirates, the other given to him by loyal friends who trusted his nautical skills. In the distant northern horizon, he snatched a glimpse of the jutting masts of two other pirate ships sitting motionless—subdued by his word alone. Below the Rosemary’s deck, the jingling chains and cusses of a fierce Willard Pirate Twin finally succumbed to silence. In the cove of the first island in the Montes de Oca island chain, the main pirate ship sat near the back, limp and lifeless. All this, too, could be attributed to Eric’s words and actions.

And yet, in spite of these noteworthy achievements, Eric doubted himself. True, he provided the terms, and true, they appeared to have been carried out to the letter, but in the back of his mind the thought that he was just a kid kept nagging away at him. He placed himself up against one of the most formidable pirates ever known to these people. He had charge of scores of adult men, none of whom he knew more than four days earlier. He found himself in an area and time period unfamiliar to him. He faced hostile foes not only in the sea, but also back at land in the forms of Governor Rose and Captain Bellview. All this … and Eric did not even have his driver’s license yet.

As much as these thoughts caused him to want to turn around and disappear, one thing alone kept him plodding forward toward the mouth of the cove.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Cap’n Francis,” Mr. Gary said from behind. “Jedediah Willard is clever enough to know when he’s been cornered. He won’t risk everything to just do a young lady harm.”

“A cornered man is a dangerous one,” Eric replied, still looking forward.

“Are you afraid he’s got something up his sleeve?”

“I’m almost certain he does,” Eric nodded. “But I’ve got something up my sleeve as well.”

Mr. Gary sniffed. “That something wouldn’t have anything to do with Lieutenant Curtis taking those men and two fishing boats into the channel a couple hours before us, would it?”

Eric shrugged. “I’m just acting on a hunch, but it’s one that I expect will pay off.”

The Rosemary, followed closely by the former pirate ship, newly named the Redemption, crossed the channel in a couple hours and pulled up to the mouth of the cove before standing before the wind. Using a large cone made of pasteboard to serve as a megaphone, Eric advised Samuel, in command of the Redemption, to use a sea anchor and be ready to slip away at a moment’s notice.

After some other last minute instructions, Eric hopped onto the longboat accompanied by thirty men and a somber Joshua Willard. Then, with one last glance to Mr. Gary, Eric took a deep breath and launched the boat in the direction of the cove. Coming toward him he observed the rise and fall of the oars of another longboat, the wake of which led back to the pirate ship.

The minute they entered it, Eric knew he did not prefer the enclosed feeling of the cove. He almost regretted making it the meeting spot, but he also knew that he had taken the proper precautions. Jedediah should be the one to feel enclosed.

If Jedediah Willard felt that way, he disguised it well. Even from a distance, Eric discerned the stern rage emanating from his posture as his longboat approached Eric’s. Eric tried to ignore the intimidating figure. Instead, he found relief when he saw Charlotte’s blonde hair move from between two large pirate guards next to Jedediah. In his own longboat, Eric saw the previously limp Joshua start to rustle.

As the two longboats glided across the final distance separating each other, Eric ordered the front of the boat cleared except for one man, who would secure their boat to the other. Jedediah neatly followed suit. Before Eric knew it, the two long boats were fastened at the bows, and the men who did the work fell back among their own.

Eric gathered his courage for the ensuing scene. After a prolonged lapse of action, Jedediah stood to his full height and proclaimed, “Well, Captain Francis, here we are together at the mouth of the cove. As you can see, I am a man of my word.” His voice carried across the space in a steady manner, but underneath Eric sensed an icy blackness that put a chill through all those present. At first, Eric panicked at the pirate’s confidence, but he managed to remind himself of the precautions he had taken. He took a deep breath and then, with a calm that mirrored Jedediah’s, he said, “We’ll see how much of a man of your word you are when you hand over Charlotte.”

“And my brother?”

Eric refused to flinch. “You took first, that means you give first. Once I see she is all right, you will have your brother back.” The boldness in his voice surprised even him, but he held his gaze unchanging. For a second he thought he almost saw a smile flit across Jedediah’s face.

“Very well.”

Though Jedediah yielded, Eric knew that it was calculation—not defeat. Consequently, Eric still prepared himself for any sort of treachery. Yet, to his surprise, his preparations could not prepare him for the one thing he did not plan on: complete adherence to his demands. Before he knew it Charlotte picked her way delicately to the front of the longboat. She switched boats and worked her way to the middle of Eric’s boat, where Eric stepped up to meet her. She fell into his arms in a wave of relief for them both.

Their embrace did not completely ignore the situation at hand. “It’s a trap,” Charlotte whispered urgently in his ear. The spunk in her voice demonstrated to Eric that, though bedraggled and somewhat shaken, Charlotte lost nothing of her fiery spirit.

“The two ships—”

Jedediah’s harsh voice interrupted her. “Now we see if you are a boy of your word.”

The connotation “boy” might have had the slightest hint of condescension in it, but Eric disregarded it. He nodded knowingly to Charlotte and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ve got Lieutenant Curtis on the job …” Then he turned around and ordered Joshua released.

In a matter of moments, the shackles dropped to the floor of the longboat and Joshua glared back at his captors with a hatred in his eyes that was frightening, even considering his unarmed, outnumbered state. Slowly, he worked his way to the front of the longboat and switched boats, stealing one last venom-filled glance at Eric before climbing in front of his stone-faced brother.

Eric watched the scene with interest. At his side he felt Charlotte tugging urgently on his shirt and hissing his name. Her voice stopped and her hand froze as soon as she witnessed the scene that followed.

Once with his brother, Joshua emitted some curses directed toward the situation, vowing revenge. Jedediah did not respond, standing as still as ever while his brother muttered angrily. After a few moments, Joshua finally looked into his twin’s eyes. His words dissolved as his mouth clamped shut and his eyes widened. A true, deep, and terrifying fear overwhelmed him.

“Jedediah,” he murmured pathetically now. “It was Walter. The boy captured him and used him to trick me. It wasn’t my fault, Jed. It wasn’t my fault.” By now he was groveling. Everyone witnessed the scene in silent awe.

Jedediah still showed next to no emotion as he brought his pistol and leveled it toward Joshua’s face. Eric suddenly turned around and grabbed Charlotte just as the shot rang out.

A hollow thud told him the results of the action. Eric swiveled around again and stared in shock at the man who just killed his own brother in cold blood. Eric never asked a question, but he did not need to. Jedediah spoke first.

“There were two reasons I went to the trouble of getting my brother back just to kill him. One, for his idiotic blunder. I couldn’t stand the thought of him dying by anyone’s hand but my own after being such a fool.”

Eric’s expression fell while listening to a man so blackened that he would go through the inconvenience of a prisoner trade just to kill the prisoner he traded for—his own brother no less. While Eric’s first thought reflected absolute disgust, his second told him how dumb Jedediah had to be to give away his collateral just so he could kill someone doomed for execution anyway.

With a motion of his hand, Jedediah called for the release of the longboats. Then he continued speaking, “The second reason was to have an excuse to lead you right into my trap.” He then nodded to one of the burly pirates behind him, who subsequently raised a large, blood red flag.

“Eric,” Charlotte’s voice pressed.

“Wait,” Eric said, holding his hand up. “He doesn’t know that his trap is about to spring on himself.”

After the flag raised, a pause followed, one long enough that Jedediah Willard almost wavered. Just before that happened, a flash of lights came from the heights westward above the cove, followed by a thunderous chorus of booms. This, apparently, is what Jedediah waited for, because he settled into a smug smile.

Then something happened that Jedediah did not expect. The salvo of cannonballs he expected to see tear Eric and his longboat apart never came. Instead, the cannon fire landed just behind him and his longboat. Jedediah Willard’s ship, sitting comfortably at the back of the cove, suddenly found itself surrounded by the splashes of several cannonballs, with one rogue ball actually crashing through the bulwarks of the ship.

As Eric suspected going into the exchange, Jedediah had cannons placed on the high ground of the enclosing cove hills in order to rain down cannonballs on Eric’s ships in the cove. And as Eric planned, Lieutenant Curtis and a regiment of his men were able to make an unsuspected strike on the pirate position from behind, take over the dozen cannons, and redirect them toward Jedediah’s ship, waiting for the pirate signal before firing.

Jedediah, for all his previous calm, displayed a strained look of disbelief and anger that caused veins to stick out from his tightened forehead. The second round of shots confirmed that this was no mere accident. The two boats had drifted far enough away at this point that Eric did not hear what Jedediah said as he leaned across a seat and stretched out his hand toward a crew member. But Eric didn’t need to hear what he said.

“Muskets out!” Eric called out. “Prepare for return fire.” A clattering of nearby weapons showed that his men had listened attentively to his instructions before they embarked.

By the time Jedediah turned face to Eric’s longboat with a pistol in hand, he looked down the distant muzzles of thirty muskets.

He displayed a surprising calm on his face as he shouted across the widening gap, “Your foresight is commendable, little captain. But controlling my pestering cannons on the heights will do nothing against the firepower of my two remaining ships.”

Eric expected desperation, not more strategy. “Wrong, pirate. You know as well as I do that they’re sitting in the north channel.”

The succeeding boom of Lieutenant Curtis’s cannons on the heights did nothing to faze the last remaining pirate twin, nor did Eric’s statement. Jedediah Willard grinned and then pulled on the trigger. Eric’s instincts alone saved him from the ball that whizzed past his ducking head. The return volley from the men in Eric’s longboat either flew across the gunnel of the pirate longboat or embedded into the boat itself.

Eric shook off the near miss. The excitement of having Jedediah Willard on the run and trapped in his own cove prompted him to call for the prearranged signal to the Rosemary and Redemption, urging them to complete the trap by sealing off all passage out of the cove.

His signal was interrupted by Charlotte. “Eric, we’ve got to get out of here!”

Eric looked quizzically at Charlotte. “But we’ve got him on the run.”

Charlotte shook her head firmly. She did not need to say anything else. Eric knew Charlotte well enough by now to know that he should trust her even when it made no sense. Forgoing the signal to seal the cove, the longboat shot across the cove waters to the Rosemary.

“What’s going on?” he asked Charlotte as they skimmed through the water. “He’s got nothing else to trap us with. I saw his two ships on the northern horizon just before we arrived.”

“Are you sure you saw ships?” Charlotte asked.

“They were far away, but the masts were clear enough.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I didn’t hear any of the plans directly, but from where they had me locked up I could tell that all day yesterday the pirate carpenters were making rafts and chopping down the largest trees they could find, on Jedediah’s orders. One of the boats was loaded with something last night and then went north.”

At first confused, Eric’s eyes soon widened. “I wasn’t looking at the mast of ships at all. I was looking at trees posing as masts. Decoys.” Charlotte nodded, trusting that Eric would naturally reach the same conclusion she had come to. Seconds later, he did. “Which means that the pirate ships are somewhere close by. They are going to surround us in this cove, just when we thought we had got the pirates surrounded.”

Eric looked back toward Jedediah. His ship already had its sails set and it crawled forward. The gun ports were open. Jedediah had been ready for this exchange. Eric’s eyes next went south, where the Rosemary and Redemption sat. Suddenly smoke discharged out of the south side of the Redemption, firing on something past the entrance that he could not see. He did not need to. It would be one of Jedediah’s ships, cutting off the southern route to Port Raleigh. The trap was closing in.

Though it was an ideal time to panic, Eric’s mind raced. Exhilarated by this masterful game of strategy, Eric determined that he could figure it out if he only thought it through. Once he figured out the location of all the ships, then he could decide on the best way to get back to Port Raleigh in one piece.

Jedediah’s ship coasted through the cove, Eric reasoned. One of Jedediah’s two other ships cut off the southern route to Port Raleigh. Where was the third ship? Possibly with the one to the south. If that held true, then Jedediah would have still left open an escape route to the north, past the Montes de Oca island chain. Eric doubted Jedediah would have left the north passage open in the hopes that he, Eric, would not think of it. He gazed northward, thinking. Then knew where the third ship would be.

By that time his longboat had almost reached the Rosemary. “West! Head west, before we’re completely trapped in the cove. Signal the Redemption to come close enough alongside for me to talk to them.”

As soon as Eric stood on the quarterdeck of the Rosemary, he saw things turning out just as he suspected. The pirate ship to the south of them ran parallel with them, firing in their direction and keeping them from heading toward the safety of Port Raleigh, waiting for Jedediah to join the fray and pick them off. Jedediah, Eric saw as he looked back, still fought past the Lieutenant Curtis’s guns in the cove. If Eric wanted to push the meager advantage that he had, he would have to do so before Jedediah exited the cove.

Lieutenant Curtis, from his near impregnable position on the heights of the cove, would clearly hold Jedediah back as long as his ship was in range, and after that Eric had no doubt he would wait until there was a clear shot back to Port Raleigh before abandoning the pirate cannons and returning with his fishing boats and men. Without the need to worry for Lieutenant Curtis’s safety, Eric turned his attention to Samuel.

Eric grabbed the megaphone and shouted across the windswept gap between the Redemption and the Rosemary. “He can’t chase us both. Keep heading west. I’ll pull up. Whichever one of us the ship follows, the other needs to go for Port Raleigh.” The unspoken and obvious downfall to such a plan was that it left one ship completely at the mercy of pirates. What Samuel did not know was that Eric felt confident that his ship would be the one the pirates would choose to corner. Eric did not plan on being cornered.

The Rosemary immediately let up, turning into the wind blowing from the east. The Redemption shot past, flying west and creating a comfortable distance between the two ships.

Eric eyed the pirate ship to the south intently, every now and then glancing back toward Jedediah. At first it seemed as if the ship would just stay its course and chase the Redemption, the opposite of what Eric hoped for. Then it was almost as if Eric could see the pirate captain realize that as soon as he went far enough after the Redemption, it would open a gap for the Rosemary to slide into Port Raleigh.

The pirate ship stopped and came about. Eric smiled, temporarily relieved. Mr. Gary, however, struggled to mirror Eric’s enthusiasm. “Well, we’ve succeeded in getting him to go after the bait, Cap’n Francis, but what is the bait going to do?”

“We head north, Mr. Gary,” Eric ordered. Mr. Gary’s eyes brightened as he put the ship in motion again. “But don’t be too disappointed if we run into another ship. One should come out from that second island any moment.”

Mr. Gary spouted “How can I not be disappointed? If you’re right and the third pirate ship is hidin’ behind the second island, then we’d have one of the devils in front of us and two behind!”

“True, Mr. Gary, true. But not to worry. Old tricks will allow us to fight again another day.”

As the Rosemary ran north, Eric noticed the pirate ship chasing him from behind. In relief, he also saw the Redemption making its way south, freely heading for the safety of Port Raleigh. Satisfied, Eric looked ahead. Not too long afterward he witnessed the realization of what he predicted to Mr. Gary. The third pirate ship crept into view, slipping out of a hidden cove at the second island of the Montes de Oca island chain.

The Rosemary cleared the northern end of the first island and Eric called out, “Keep close to the shoals, Mr. Gary.”

Mr. Gary managed to follow through with the orders, though not without speaking his mind as he did so. “Might I ask where we’re heading, sir? A pirate in front, one behind, and another one joining him soon does not make for a happy ending.”

“That’s because it’s not an ending,” Eric stated.

Mr. Gary looked around incredulously. “With those ships shutting off every available escape route, it seems like an ending to me, Cap’n Francis!”

Eric shook his head. “You of all people should recall that there are more ways of escaping to the open ocean than just by the northern or southern channels, Mr. Gary. Do you not recall the way we entered a few days ago?”

“That? You mean that tiny, improbable passage through the shoals? But getting through that was impossible …” He suddenly realized who he spoke to. “Cap’n, do you think you can do it again? I mean the first time was miraculous but—”

“The flood tide is in, so the timing works out. As for navigating it again, I’ll be honest with you. I’m really not sure if it’s possible or not, but considering the situation we’re in, I’m not sure we have many other choices. I’ll tell you one thing, though: I feel better giving the shoals a shot than fighting either of the two pirate ships.”

Mr. Gary nodded. As had become custom, he found grudging confidence in Eric, and despite the dire situation, Mr. Gary felt calm. With a low voice, he ordered the coxswain closer to the shoals. The pirate ship to the north began to bear down hard on the Rosemary, eagerly set on trapping them up against the apparently impassable obstacle of the shoals.

“I’m going to the forecastle to scout the reef, Mr. Gary. I’ll yell back instructions the closer we get and then come join you back here so I can take her in. For now, we can ease up on the sails a little bit.” Although Eric managed to navigate the shoals before, he still felt nervous. He knew the nerves would disappear once he found himself in the midst of the action. Until then, he hoped to distract himself by scouting out the reefs.

From the forecastle, Eric scanned the shoals with a shade of familiarity and knew that the moment would soon arrive. He winced as he felt the east wind slamming against him. That’ll make the passage tricky, he thought. We’ll have to gain some momentum to glide through the first bend and—

Then, in the distance, he saw it: the tiny opening that would take him through the shoals. He hardly believed that a ship could fit through such a slight passage. He disregarded that thought and began calculating. His instinct for sailing absorbed all of the elements that he faced, and he nodded resolutely, swiftly returning to the quarterdeck and taking the wheel from the relieved coxswain.

At this moment of pure concentration, with the whole crew silently watching and praying, a hesitant Charlotte stepped up behind Eric and tugged on his shirt.

“Don’t worry, Charlotte, I know what I’m doing,” Eric said, his mind carefully measuring the distance to the passage.

Charlotte bit her lip. “I think I need to tell you something.”

“Now?” Eric asked. Though not exactly annoyed, Eric felt a bit distracted. “Because I’ll be happy to talk to you—”

“I saw into their eyes, Eric. Both of the twins, I saw into their eyes.”

Eric’s brow furrowed, but he kept his eyes on the shoals to the side of the ship. “What did you see?”

“Well, Joshua … he was a natural-born shoe designer.”

Though the situation did not really call for it, Eric had to laugh. “One of the feared pirate twins, one of the ones that has kept a whole port cooped up for a week in terror, is a natural-born shoe designer?”

“Yes,” Charlotte responded in a measured tone. She did not seem as amused as Eric. Eric suddenly flung the wheel to the right and the ship lurched eastward, close hauled with the wind and heading straight for the shoals.

“And the other?” Eric asked mechanically, his mind still focused on the job at hand. “What about Jedediah?”

Charlotte set her jaw but said nothing.

To Eric, Charlotte’s silence was more worrisome than anything else. Even though the Rosemary now careened straight for the shoals, Eric finally took his eyes off the sea in front of him and looked into Charlotte’s eyes. “Charlotte. What about Jedediah?”

In spite of the urgency of the situation, Charlotte licked her lips and stood in silence for an agonizing couple of seconds without daring to respond.

“Charlotte,” Eric’s voice was soft, but insistent, “tell me.”

“He’s a natural-born pirate.”

The statement left Eric speechless for a moment as he internalized it. Though the world stopped for Eric, the Rosemary still plunged forward. “What does that mean?” he asked, almost in a daze. “What does it mean when you have a natural-born pirate against a natural-born pirate hunter?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte responded, quickly now. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”

The shoals loomed closer still, almost at the foot of the bow. And then it dawned on Eric. “It means that he knows what I plan to do.” He suddenly seemed to see the shoals for the first time. Without hesitating, he spun the wheel sharply to the left while yelling for everyone to hold on. The Rosemary swung a wide arc to the north, but the shoals were close and getting even closer in spite of Eric’s evasive maneuver. For a moment, the whole crew braced themselves for impact with the reef. A sudden jarring of the ship threw several sailors to the deck, and a sickening scraping sound moaned from the Rosemary’s bowels. For a horrifying moment, everyone thought the Rosemary came to an end, then just as suddenly as they came, the shoals faded away while the Rosemary slipped just out of reach and back into safe waters.

After an initial recovery, Mr. Gary came up to Eric and said, “What happened, Cap’n Francis? I’s watching, and you was headed straight for the gap. I think you’d have made it.”

Eric felt the vibrations of the scraping on the hull still reverberating in his head. Mr. Gary had to pose his question a second time before Eric responded. “Get out your spyglass and look at it carefully, Mr. Gary.” By this time the Rosemary swiveled into the wind, standing about a hundred yards from the shoals that almost grabbed them, her sails flapping restlessly in the afternoon breeze, the water slapping in white bursts against her side. Mr. Gary grabbed his spyglass and stood against the taffrail, observing the gap as best as he could.

“By Neptune’s beard,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Charlotte stepped toward them.

“The passage is blocked. But it isn’t reef that’s blockin’ it. It ’pears to be ballast … rocks. As if someone dumped ’em there.”

Eric nodded gravely.

Charlotte turned to Eric. “Jedediah knew you were going to go for this gap? How could he?”

“I’m sure he wanted to trap me in the cove, but he also realized there was a good chance that at least one ship would escape the cove. If that were the case, he knew that I would be blocked by his ships on the north and the south. He evidently thought further than that, realizing that if I had been trapped, I might try to go back the way I came. He outwitted me. He must have blocked off this passage sometime yesterday when setting the decoy masts in the north.”

“Well, Cap’n Francis, once again, you’ve saved us from a terrible fate,” Mr. Gary remarked, still eyeing the blocked gap with his spyglass in amazement.

“Hardly, Mr. Gary. I’ve now run out of plans and we have pirates ships surrounding us with a reef at our backs.”

Mr. Gary’s spyglass went down and he immediately looked to the north, noting the approaching pirate ship with newfound fear. “What can we do?”

Eric became despondent. “Well, considering the wind, our best course of action would be to engage in battle with the ship to the north. It’s the one chance we would have of escaping with our lives. But everything else suggests that we’ll be torn to pieces. That one ship outguns and outmans us ten to one. One close range broadside and there would barely be a piece of the Rosemary to remember her by. And if we were to somehow get past the ship, we would need to do so before the pirate ship from the south and Jedediah reached us. It’d take a miracle.”

Mr. Gary’s face fell. In the short time he had known Eric, he had never seen him like this. Frustrated, yes. Despairing, yes. But no matter how dire the circumstances, Eric still managed to always be thinking, planning, hoping. Now, he acted as if he did not care anymore. “Well, you’ve managed some miracles already, Cap’n Francis …” He tried to spark some hope into Eric’s eyes.

Eric blinked. “There will be no miracle coming from me this time, Mr. Gary. I’ve been outmaneuvered.”

Mr. Gary looked away from Eric and turned to Charlotte, but he received no help from her. She simply gazed at Eric with concern. Mr. Gary darted his eyes from one place to another, but to no avail. No answers presented themselves. No miracles appeared. He clenched his fists and gazed once more on the forbidding pirate ship bearing down on them.

“Go find a white piece o’ cloth,” Mr. Gary mumbled reluctantly to the coxswain. The coxswain faltered before passing the word along to a sailor on the deck.

Eric, in spite of all going on around him, felt absolutely alone. In spite of everything he had done and learned, in spite of his clear natural-born talent, Eric managed to still be useless. It was like a horrible curse that he could not shake. He felt empty, and it seemed as if he could neither see nor hear anyone. All on deck seemed to know better than to approach him.

Except for Charlotte.

Once Charlotte stepped toward him, his vacuous eyes finally locked in on her, and he gave her a sad smile. A last and noble, yet failing effort, to pretend that things might turn out okay. Charlotte acknowledged his effort with a pseudo-smile of her own, and he noticed a thin layer of moisture in her eyes. The two slumped down against the taffrail, and Charlotte stared straight ahead. The usually brash girl took a long moment before she could muster something past her constricting throat.

“I’m sorry, Eric.”

Eric shook his head. His eyes, too, had moistened. “I got a taste of what it could be like, Charlotte. I can never thank you enough. I’m sorry that I wasn’t quite up to the task.”

Charlotte took a deep breath. She had a million things she wanted to say but she either could not find the right way to say them, or she didn’t think it would help. She wanted to tell him that he had no fault, but she did not know how to do that in a way that he would believe her.

Men scurried around them as the two sat in silence. Someone shouted something. In the distance, they might have heard the sound of firing cannons, but they remained oblivious to it all. Finally, Charlotte spoke. “I remember first walking into your math classroom, Eric. I remember looking at you, and I knew you were special.”

“Special only gets you so far, I suppose,” Eric’s hand waved toward the chaos in front of them.

“No. Not because of the talent, Eric. Because of you.” She paused before continuing, her thoughts caught up to her now, and she felt confident that what she now said was the raw, absolute truth. “And now that I’ve spent this time with you, I am more convinced than ever. No matter what you were born to do. No matter what you have accomplished here, or what you think you haven’t. You are special, Eric. You really are. Not because of your talent. Because of you.”

Eric turned to look Charlotte in the face. His eyes softened and wet streaks traced down his cheeks from his unblinking eyes. “Thank you, Charlotte.” And then, in an action that told more than any words could, the two friends embraced.

“Cap’n Francis, I hate to disturb, but …” the tone in Mr. Gary’s voice made it apparent that he did not mind disturbing at all. Nevertheless, it took both Charlotte and Eric a moment to respond. For the short time during their embrace, they felt as if they had been removed from this foreign world around them. Finally, they turned to face Mr. Gary, taking in their surroundings once more.

“Sorry, Cap’n, but I thought you might want to see this.” Mr. Gary helped Eric to his feet and pointed north. For a second, he simply stood and observed. Then Eric’s mouth parted. He next swiveled south and his eyes widened.

“What is it?” Charlotte asked, as she stood up next to them. Her eyes noticed that the pirate ship to the north turned completely around and ran away fast as its sails could carry her. Charlotte then rotated and saw the anticipated ships from the south approaching in a smokescreen of cannon fire.

“What is going on?”

Eric had not recovered his enthusiasm, but he gave a sound appraisal of the situation. “There are four ships heading this way from the south.”

Charlotte tried to separate the conglomeration of masts from the smoke and haze that blocked the cannon-firing ships beneath them. “But I thought there were only two other pirate ships coming after us from the south …”

“Exactly.”

“So how did the pirates get two more ships?” No immediate response. Then Charlotte had another realization. “And why does it look like they are fighting each other?”

“Three against one, actually. The one on the right would be the pirate ship that blocked our south passage just minutes ago. Then one of the three ships fighting the pirate is likely to be Samuel in the Redemption.”

“And the other two?”

“Looks like the fight is almost done. We should see the smoke clear any second, and I bet we’ll see the Royal Navy flag show itself.”

As if fulfilling Eric’s prophecy, hardly moments later the firing ceased, and a white flag ran up the pirate’s ship. Out of the dispersing haze, Charlotte discerned the familiar Union Jack flag that she had seen flown in the harbor of Port Raleigh.

“Captain Bellview’s ships-of-the-line?”

“Looks like it. They’ve come to save the day.” Eric spoke his line as if from a script.

“Why?” Charlotte mused.

“That,” Eric replied flatly, “is beyond even my speculations.”