Chapter 172: Trust Me, Lass
A drainpipe, one hard drop, and that was all the welcome the rooftops saw fit to provide.
The alley cobblestones came up flat under James’s boots, which felt like a blessing after all the clay sliding and cracking beneath him. He hitched Kit higher against his chest and took the party straight into the dockside morning traffic.
Some carts rattled by with sugar and salt fish, and barrows loaded with tobacco leaf squeezed between warehouses big enough to hide five more people without anybody caring, so long as nobody stopped long enough to notice the bloodied, senseless boy being hauled through the middle of them.
Sam came alongside him, his eyes gone up to the rigging of the galleon waiting some distance ahead, her canvas furled tight along the yards and her ropes hanging silently in the morning breeze.
He kept his voice low, meant for James and nobody else. "That’s a lass built for some hundred hands, Calloway, near enough. How exactly do you propose we sail her?"
James clicked his tongue and kept walking. He let the question there until Sam realized they had neither the time or the room for a strategic discussion.
Jim, naturally, could not permit such a fine silence to go to waste. "I’ve sailed a sloop alone before, ye know. Whole crew laid up with the fever off Barbados, every last man of ’em. I brought her in single-handed, three days and two nights, with nothin’ but me, the wind, and a bottle of rum for company."
Nobody looked persuaded. Fortunately, nobody had the breath to argue with him, either.
Milagros threw both hands up between them. "And what am I supposed to do once we’re aboard, exactly? Stand around lookin’ fierce? I’m no sailor, señor, and I have no idea what in the devil is a halyard."
"Trust me, lass."
James let a grin broad enough to end a discussion in any sensible world. In this one, it only made the matter considerably worse.
By then, the fort alarm caught up to the harbor. One soldier’s shout traveled down the wharf, picked up by the next man and then the next, until the whole dockside had the same urgency the fort had been chewing over for the better part of an hour.
The crowd scattered toward warehouse doors and piles of crates, with one woman snatching up a basket of oranges as if the fruits had personally committed a grave crime. The more brave folks planted their feet where they were, folded their arms, and watched the smoke rise over the fort walls with frank interest, as if the chaos was nothing but a cockfight worth the show.
Nobody stopped them at the gangway.
The galleon’s watch turned out to be three men and precious little attention between them. One was asleep against the mainmast with his hat pulled low, while the other two stood by the rail sharing a flask and giving it far more interest than they had ever given the harbor.
Jim cut the sleeping man’s throat before the fellow had time to stir awake. He made a wet, startled sound and clutched at the wound as he was shoved aside, blood gushing between his fingers and splashing across the planks.
The second sailor had barely lowered the flask when Sam was upon him.
His blade went in beneath the ribs, and the man’s breath left him in a short, ugly gasp. The flask slipped from his hand and struck the deck, spilling liquor between the boards as he sagged against the rail.
Milagros had the third before he could make sense of what had happened to the others. He turned at the sound of the flask falling down, saw her coming, and brought up one hand too late.
Her blade drove into his chest and knocked him back against the rail, and then she wrenched it free, to let the man fold down the side of the ship and leave a dark smear across the wood as he went.
James paid none of it much mind and made for the quarterdeck.
He reached the wheel and lowered Kit beside it with care, tucking his coat beneath the boy’s head.
Then he turned to the others. "Cable up! Get the canvas loose and whatever to get her moving! Don’t stop just to make it pretty!"
The work was rough, but there was no confusion about what had to be done.
Sam went for the rigging while Jim cut the anchor loose, and between the two of them the ship began to answer to the wind. Milagros did what she could beside them, hauling where she was told and learning the rest as she went.
The canvas came down hard and crooked, caught the morning wind, and bellied out with a crack that made the whole sail jump. The freed anchor tore briefly along the seabed before dropping, and the galleon cried a long, heavy shudder as she began to sail away.
It was ugly, but it worked.
Tomás found them in the middle of it. A knot of soldiers had at last figured out one ship was being stolen and came hammering down the wharf toward the gangway.
He broke from a side street at a dead run, shoved two of them bodily off the dock and into the water, then reached the gangway just as it swung loose from the galleon.
One last step in stride and he landed aboard as the deck was already beginning to pull away beneath his boots.
"I am glad I made in time."
He observed it while straightening the borrowed coat calmly, then went to find a rope worth hauling.
James kept the wheel turning, easing the galleon toward open water while the noise behind them on the dock grew louder.
Then Jim’s voice cut through the rest.
"Cap’n! Another one, and she’s not sleepin’!"
Another galleon was sailing away from the harbor. Her sails were already catching the wind, and her deck was crowded with numbers close to twenty soldiers.
These men looked considerably more awake than the first lot had, and their ship closed the distance fast enough that nobody needed to explain the trouble.
James watched the new galleon for a moment.
Then his grin returned.
He let go of the wheel altogether, scooped Kit up from the quarterdeck, and turned for the nearest hatch.
"Below! All of ye, now! Out of sight, and not a bloody word about it!"
"What in the-" Milagros began.
Nobody got an explanation. James was already down the ladder before anybody could think to ask for one, and if there was a plan, he plainly meant to keep it to himself until it became necessary.