Chapter 248: Handy, Me Boys
Three days after that night, the reef appeared pale beneath the bow.
Dawn lay flat and easy across the water, all soft Caribbean gold, the kind no sailor aboard ever got tired of. Concordia’s beacon markers slipped past on either side, stone cairns topped with iron cages.
Winchelsea followed behind on her hawser, patched canvas crooked over her broken mast. The towline stayed tight enough to make an English frigate heel obediently all the way home.
James had the wheel himself, while Grey stood close enough to complain if the lass went shallow, though for once the old bastard hadn’t much to complain about.
The channel narrowed, and the crew fell into the old rhythm on the rigging. They hauled the tow through water too shallow for them to trust and too well marked for them to lose.
Up in the rigging, Kit refused to let them sail in silence.
"Was you ever down in Mobile Bay?" Kit called down.
"Handy, me boys, so handy!" the whole deck roared back.
"Screwin’ cotton the live-long day?"
"So handy, me boys, so handy!"
Their boots found the beat of the hauling, and the tune worked its way through James’s blood. It stirred up that old easy satisfaction he’d never quite managed to lose after hearing sailors sing deep into the sea.
"Growl ye may, but go ye must!"
Greasy Pete grunted the line so loudly that the deck laughed before the next one came.
Beside him, Doyle hauled with a corked jar swinging from his hip.
"That’s the spirit, Pete! Bully ship, bully crew, and not a drop o’ me finest wasted on the lot o’ ye!"
"Bully crew, is it?"
Pete spat over the rail.
"Bully crew still got half its face numb from that green batch o’ yours, more like."
"Character-buildin’, that were."
"So’s drownin’, Doyle, an’ I’d be much obliged if ye left me out o’ the next bloody experiment."
Doyle only laughed harder, and the verse went on without either sailor missing his place.
Beyond the wake, the channel was busy with life.
Fishing smacks worked the shallows with nets half hauled and one smugglers sloop headed out under Concordia’s colors, while a customs boat crossed his bow low in the water, bales and casks piled to her gunwales. Little boats slipped between them all with confidence, as if they had sailed often enough to simply remember the reefs by instinct.
Cudjoe came up beside the wheel and looked it all over.
He said it flat. "Christ, man leaves fer a wee spell, an’ comes home tae find the harbor’s busier than the bloody man himself."
James only grinned.
He had stopped trying to explain how any of it got built, since he wasn’t entirely sure himself most days.
Farther in, off the main run, he caught sight of the first little villages, knots of thatch and timber tucked well back from open water, each with piers no longer than a longboat and nets hanging out to dry along the pilings.
It was Mateo’s notion, scattered wide across the bay, small enough that one bad fire, or one bad quarrel, couldn’t swallow the whole settlement at once.
James rather liked being wrong about how much that vote would come to matter.
Ahead, the headland had taken on a form it had never worn before.
The battery fortifications sat in the rock, its guns run out through fresh embrasures and pointed square across the narrows, while behind it a longer curtain wall and half-raised bastion climbed the slope beneath scaffolding thick with laborers.
Every part of it looked as though some stubborn fellow had taken pains to measure it twice, and then a third time for good fortune. It was the grim precision one expected from one narrow little Frenchman after he’d fainted clean away the first evening he watched Doyle sample his own rum.
The shanty ran toward its end as the fortifications slid past.
"A handy ship an’ a handy crew!"
"Handy, me boys, so handy!"
"A handy Mate an’ Old Man too!"
Enzo kidnapped the last line clean off the rails, dragging the final note out long enough for the crew to groan and grin with him. He spread both arms wide as though the whole ocean belonged to him and not a soul had yet dared to tell him otherwise.
"Fer Christ’s sake, Enzo, save yer grand performance fer the ladies."
In the end, Farrow was the one to interrupt him.
"A gun’ll fire true without a song sung at her, an’ a rope’ll run straight enough without ye teachin’ it bloody opera."
"Ah, but Signor Farrow, you’ll never hear a gun make a lady swoon, now, will you?"
"Nor has yer singin’, judging by the looks ye’ve put on their faces."
James laughed outright, and the whole crew brought the last chorus home together as the channel finally parted wide into the bay.
Concordia came into view piece by piece.
Stone piers ran out where mudflats had once sprawled, and a market square with a proper customs house stood where fish stalls had once spread their stink over the mud. The shipwright’s yard had fresh keels laid beside the careening cradle, half a dozen merchant hulls taking form beneath scaffolding and heavy, steady work.
The stonemason’s yard worked away beyond it, blocks stacked in neat rows waiting their turn at the bastion. The Runts rode in a loose, comfortable knot, more of the ragged little fleet brought together than James expected.
Beyond the water, the town had stopped its unrestricted, wild growth.
Streets spread straight instead of wandering wherever, and smoke from forges climbed steadily over the workshop district, while a chapel bell carried faintly across the harbor.
Up on the ridge sat the pale stone estate, worn in now.
Back on the bay, a handful of fishing boats came out to meet them before the Rose could reach her berth. They eased alongside Winchelsea and took the strain of her hawser in turn.
The wheel went light under James’s hands the moment the tow left her.
From there, lines went out and boots found the dock. The old familiar creak of a ship coming to lay against her berth spread n through the deck beneath him.
The Rose came to rest at her mooring.
Before James had properly stepped away from the wheel, the shimmer gathered.
⚓ [ALLIED TERRITORY — CONCORDIA」
Faction : None (Independent)
Status : Pirate Democracy (Viable)
Population : Approximately 1850
Stability : Steady and Secure
Harbor : Sheltered Bay, Protected by Reefs, Large Stone Pier, Beacon-Marked Channel, Fortification Battery, Bastion and Curtain Wall (Under Construction)
Major Facilities : the Code, Residential Quarter, Sailors’ Quarter, Expanded Farmland, Market Square, Shipwright’s Yard, Forge
Faction Status : Chairman (Nearly Official)
Perks : [No King But the Sea]
🏴 [CITY OVERVIEW — HARBOR DISTRICT]
Goods & Resources : Ship Timber, Pitch and Tar, Cordage, Salt Fish, Quarried Stone
Major Facilities : Stone Pier, Market Square, Customs House, Shipwright’s Yard, Careening Cradle, Stonemason’s Yard, Fortification Battery, Bastion and Curtain Wall (Under Construction), Beacon-Marked Channel, Fisherman’s Dock, Sailors’ Quarter, Cookhouse
Development : Harbor expansion and maritime trade remain the primary focus, with new piers, warehouses, and defenses improving the bay.
🏴 [CITY OVERVIEW — TOWNSHIP CENTER]
Goods & Resources : Fresh Water, Rum and Ale, Coin and Trade Goods, Foodstuffs
Major Facilities : The Code, Assembly Hall, Chapel, Large Tavern, Brothel, Schoolhouse, Alliance Headquarters, Residential Quarter, Cookhouse (x2)
Development : Population growth and civic development remain the focus, with housing, education, and public services expanding steadily
🏴 [CITY OVERVIEW — WORKSHOP DISTRICT]
Goods & Resources : Raw Timber, Quarried Stone, Pig Iron, Charcoal
Major Facilities : Sawpit, Stoneworks, Forge (Multiple)
Development : Industrial expansion is the current focus, with new forges, sawpits, and stoneworks increasing local production
🏴 [CITY OVERVIEW — OUTSKIRTS]
Goods & Resources : Corn, Cane, and Cassava, Game Meat, Rum
Major Facilities : Expanded Farmland, Hunting Camp, Distillery
Development : Agricultural expansion remains the priority, with new farmland, livestock, and distilleries making better use of the surrounding marsh and countryside