Page 17 of The Salamander

The schooner answered the Tyrannicide’s first bow gun with a swivel blast that shattered the sloop’s rail. Splinters flew like darts. Men ducked, and one tar cried out clutching his cheek.

“Run out the starboard battery!” Jon bellowed. “Give her the next one amidships!”

The Tyrannicide’s deck thundered with the recoil of her guns. The schooner lurched, wood flying from her bulwark, but she swung to return fire.

For twenty minutes the two ships traded shots, smoke and flame writhing in the breeze, the sea alive with round shot skipping across its surface. Twice the Tyrannicide’s rigging shivered under hits aloft. A halyard parted with a snap and a yard came down with a crash, narrowly missing the gun crew below.

Still, Jon ordered the crew to press closer to the British ship. With the breeze freshening in their favor, the Tyrannicide ranged up across her stern and loosed a raking broadside. That settled her. The schooner’s colors dropped to the deck in surrender.

Jon wiped sweat and powder grit from his brow, then sent Benjamin Moses with a prize crew to take her in.

“Good capture,” said Fisk with a grin.

But the day was not yet done. By mid-afternoon, another merchantman loomed, a fat catch. She struck her colors without a shot, and Jon ordered John Bray forward with a third prize crew.

The prize had barely hove to when the cry from the foretop came sharp and thin against the wind. “Frigate to windward!”

Jon swung round. A great hull bore down, sails taut, gunports bristling black. The Royal Navy had arrived.

“Abandon the prize!” Jon shouted, the order echoed at once by Fisk. Bray and his men pulled back in haste, the merchantman left wallowing.

The frigate’s bow chasers opened fire, balls howling overhead. One smashed into the quarter, showering the deck with splinters. A gunner fell screaming, his leg mangled, while another shot tore through the shrouds, blocks and rigging crashing down. For a breathless instant the mainmast trembled, but held.

“All hands to stations!” Jon roared. “Stand by to wear ship!”

The Tyrannicide leapt as her sails filled, the helm hard over. Gun crews ducked as the enemy’s fire raked the water, geysers of spray leaping high. Each boom of the frigate’s guns seemed nearer, each impact shuddering through the Tyrannicide’s planks.

“Bear away for the shoals!” Fisk snapped.

Jon’s jaw clenched. They were running for their lives, and all depended on reaching shallower water where the frigate dared not follow. The enemy closed, minute by minute, the thunder of her bow chasers like a storm breaking on their heels.

Another crash aft, followed by smoke, blood, the cry of a wounded seaman. Still the Tyrannicide flew on.

At last, the sound of the frigate’s guns thinned, the shots falling short. With one final boom, the Royal Navy ship fell away, unwilling to hazard the shoals.

Jon drew a ragged breath, scanning the deck. Blood on the planks, scars in the timbers. But her mast still stood. Two prizes safe, headed for Salem, one lost, and the Tyrannicide herself alive to fight another day.

On the quarterdeck Fisk exhaled, his voice rough. “That was a narrow scrape.”

Jon’s eyes stayed on the horizon, the salt wind whipping his face. “Narrower than I care to see again, sir.”

Salem, Massachusetts, 5 August 1776

THE BELLS OF the East Church tolled slow and solemn, their iron voices rolling over the rooftops toward the harbor. Eunice walked with her mother and Hannah through the summer heat, their steps quiet on the worn brick of the path to the church’s door.

Inside, the air was still and heavy with the mingled scents of pine pews, beeswax, and the faint scent of salt carried in on the breeze. Light spilled through the tall windows, falling across the congregation in pale stripes. The air held the mingled scents of summer dust and the waterfront a few streets away.

Eunice sat near her mother, Hannah between them, her small hands folded solemnly in her lap. Above the pulpit, the high, white-painted sounding board caught Reverend Diman’s voice and sent it ringing through the congregation, as he read from the proclamation calling for a day of prayer and fasting.

“We are gathered,” he intoned, “to humble ourselves before the Lord, to seek His mercy on our new country, our new state, and to ask Him to preserve this land and those who fight for her liberty…”

Her father’s voice was grave, speaking of the dangers at sea, the hardships endured, and the need for divine protection over “our brave mariners, who hazard all in the cause of liberty.”

Somewhere beyond the horizon, Mr. Haraden was under sail, perhaps in pursuit, perhaps being pursued. Without warning, a shiver prickled at the base of Eunice’s neck, as if a shadow had passed over her spirit. She gripped Hannah’s hand a little tighter. “We must pray for your papa.”

Hannah bowed her head, her lips moving with a prayer, her brow furrowed in earnest concentration. Eunice glanced down at her young charge and felt a swell of pride. But even as she bowed her own head to pray, her thoughts wandered to the sea. Her father’s words were meant for all sailors, yet in her mind they wrapped themselves around one man’s name. She tried to push away the flicker of unease, the image of canvas straining before the wind, of gun smoke drifting over dark water, but it settled in her like a shadow.

She prayed all the harder, for his safety, asking God to bring his ship home.