Nate charged back to the waterfront.

His best hope was to catch the Valerie back to Connecticut. He’d figure out what to do when he got there. If he couldn’t sneak onto the Valerie like last time, he’d beg the captain to take him. He’d offer to scrub the decks, carry out the dead rats — anything!

But Nate was too late.

He reached the dock just as the Valerie was sailing away.

He tore down the dock, yelling.

“Stop! Wait! Come back!”

But the sailors couldn’t hear him. And even if they could, Nate knew the captain wouldn’t turn the ship around for some nobody kid.

Now what would Nate do?

He stared out into the harbor, as though the answer might be floating in the water. And that’s when he spotted them: two enormous sailing ships. They were coming from the south and seemed to be heading right for the city.

Nate’s heart lifted up: Maybe he’d find a job after all!

But as the ships came closer, he realized they were not regular sailing ships like Papa’s. They were bigger. They rose proudly out of the water, each with twelve sparkling white sails gleaming in the sun.

As they turned slightly, Nate saw that both ships had small square openings along the sides. And poking out of each square was the black muzzle of a cannon. They were like gigantic black serpents, peering out from their caves.

Flags of England flapped from the ships’ masts.

They were British warships!

Nate stared with a mix of fear and fascination, like the time he found a scorpion in his hammock. All his life he’d been hearing stories about the British navy. It was the mightiest on Earth, with hundreds of warships prowling the seas.

The greatest British warship of them all were called men-of-war — floating cities that could hold a thousand men and almost a hundred big cannons. Each cannon could blast a twenty-four-pound ball that would streak through the air faster than a person could blink.

There was no weapon on Earth as powerful as a big cannon.

Nate knew it took five men to load and fire each one. One ball could punch through a stone fortress wall. It could rip through a line of soldiers. It could turn a house to rubble. It could blow a hole in an enemy warship, dooming it to an underwater grave.

But the crew of a big warship didn’t just fire off one cannonball at a time. They fired dozens of cannons at once, unleashing a crushing wave of metal balls. A man-of-war could destroy a city within hours.

Nate’s blood turned cold as he watched the two warships stream around the southern tip of the city.

A crowd of American soldiers had joined Nate on the dock.

They shouted out curses and shook their fists.

And then a thundering explosion shook the ground.

Kaboom!

The explosion rattled Nate’s bones — and almost sent him leaping into the water in fear.

But then he realized that the blast hadn’t come from either of the British ships.

Across the river, in Brooklyn, big puffs of gray smoke rose up from a hilltop. When the curtain of smoke cleared, Nate could see ten cannons lined up in a row.

Kaboom!

Kaboom!

Kaboom!

They blasted away at the British ships.

And then came blasts from somewhere closer — on this side of the river. The Americans must have put cannons all around the city.

Soldiers were crowding the docks now. Two men stood behind Nate. They screamed out insults to the British ships.

“Putting on a little show for us, you devils?” one jeered.

“We’ll blast you up to the moon!”

The American cannons thundered and boomed. The air was filled with the sharp metal stink of gunpowder smoke.

Soldiers whooped and cheered after every blast.

Kaboom!

“Huzzah!”

Kaboom!

“Huzzah!”

None of the American cannonballs hit the ships; each splashed down harmlessly in the river.

But the soldiers didn’t seem to care.

They roared and taunted.

“Sink those cowards!”

But then Nate noticed that the bigger of the British warships had slowed down.

A tongue of flame flicked out of one of its cannons.

Kaboom!

An odd sizzling sound filled the sky overhead.

Someone screamed. And then,

Crash!

A cannonball came down, smashing a house just a few yards from where Nate stood. The ground shook. Shards of wood rained down. A man shouted out.

“Run!”