Bring It Close by Helen Hollick Page A

Ma’am.” Polite, Sandy Banks gestured towards the ladder steps. “You’ll be safer tucked down in the hold with the Cap’n’s belongings when we start firing.”
    “Firing?” Alicia squeaked, turning back towards Jesamiah. “We are to fight?”
    “Not if I can ‘elp it,” Jesamiah answered. “But I can’t guarantee what that bugger Edward Teach, old Blackbeard ‘imself, will do once ‘e spots us.”
    She squeaked again, a sound nearer a scream, “But we could be killed!”
    Jesamiah sniffed, wiped his nose with the cuff of his coat. Repeated, “Again, not if I can help it.” He paused, added bluntly, “You’d best fetch her a pistol, Sandy. See it’s loaded and primed.”
    “I will need no such thing. If you think I will be aiding you to fight in an act of piracy, think again Jesamiah Acorne!”
    Jesamiah barely glanced at her, dispassionate. “It ain’t for our benefit, Madam. If Teach gets the better of us you’ll be wanting a quick death. As you said yourself, he ain’t known for his nice treatment of the ladies. See the whores have weapons for the same purpose, Sandy. Even they don’t deserve Blackbeard’s brutality.”
    Banks nodded, proffered his arm again. “Ma’am? If you would care to accompany me?”
    Men were spilling onto the deck from below, more than a few buttoning breeches or the loose-legged, knee length striped trousers most sailors preferred. Every man had his place: at the masts ready to haul the great sails or beside the guns, loosening the securing tackle on the wooden trucks; fetching shot, loading. Making ready. Sea Witch carried twenty-four cannon – Jesamiah had taken the opportunity these few idle weeks to increase her firepower, using as an excuse the fact that he had recently had a severe disagreement with the Spanish, with whom England had been embroiled in a short tit-for-tat war. Being half Spanish Jesamiah had briefly considered fighting on their side – as had several pirates, the English not being relied upon to keep a given word regarding amnesties and governor-granted pardons. In the end he had decided that the Spanish were even less reliable, and anyway, the disagreement had lasted for only the blink of an eye.
    Eight guns a side on the lower gun deck, six on the open waist, three each to larb’d and starb’d; two seated in Jesamiah’s cabin as stern chasers. And to complete the armoury, several swivel guns were placed fore and aft, the weaponry complemented by pistols, muskets and a quantity of grenados. The four boys, lads of between eleven and thirteen, were scurrying with buckets of sand to spread around the wheels of the gun trucks. There would be blood, there always was. Sand gave a foothold when the decks became slippery.
    Sand, too, spread in a cramped area of the forward hold, safe below the water line where Mr Janson was setting out his surgical implements beside the table. He had served as loblolly boy for more years than he remembered, the title a traditional one for the surgeon’s mate, even though he was mature in years. And even though they had no surgeon aboard. Not that it had made a difference when there had been. Jackson had always been too drunk to wield anything more than a bottle. Jansy had taken over as surgeon the day Jackson had been about to amputate the wrong leg from some poor wretch. A pity Miss Tiola was not here; her healing skills and dextrous hands would have been appreciated if the worst came to the worst. Still, Jansy did not quite hold with her insistence on cleanliness. What was the point of scrubbing instruments when they were going to get all bloody again? Though he had to admit she lost fewer wounded, but then, she had a woman’s touch so that could be expected.
    Throughout the ship echoed a general bustle of expectant but orderly noise, the thudding of running feet, energetic hammering accompanied by mild cursing. Jesamiah’s great cabin had been altered in a matter of minutes; the bulkhead screens unbolted