The Smuggler's Curse by Norman Jorgensen Page A

theirs,’ replies the Captain.
    The deadly cliffs and hidden rocks of the point lie directly ahead, while, to the left, the coast and the shallows of a wide sandy bay block our way. To the right, directly into the wind, looms a warship armed with three dozen thirty-two pounder guns that can turn a whole town into rubble in an hour. They can also turn the bravest man’s bowels to liquid in an instant, or a boy’s even quicker. I look about the deck. The men are silent, some visibly frightened, and most wait for the Captain’s reaction.
    You do not need to be an experienced sailor to know this is not good.
    â€˜Bosun Stevenson,’ the Captain calls calmly, loud enough for us all to hear. ‘Remember our scrap with that scurvy pirate south of Hong Kong a couple of years ago? How we got out of it?’ Several men smile. ‘It worked then, God rot him. I don’t see why it shouldn’t work now.’
    â€˜Except that pirate wasn’t a thirty-six-gun frigate bearing down on our heads,’ says Bosun Stevenson.
    â€˜The principle’s the same. We’ll just have to be quicker by half,’ he replies.
    â€˜If you say so, sir.’
    â€˜Bosun Stevenson, take us about and set a course for that beach yonder, if you’d be so kind. And Mr Smith, I suggest you load and prime the three port guns. Load them with grapeshot, the biggest you have. Doublecharge, I suggest. We want to do some grievous damage here today.’
    Even before Mr Smith relays the order, the gun crew has started work, using block and tackle to pull the wooden gun carriages to the rail. Both the carriage wheels and pulley wheels squeal in protest as the men grunt with the effort.
    I know my job. I scamper off down the ladder into the gun locker below the waterline, to bring up more sacks of gunpowder. In spite of the darkness, I am not allowed to use a lantern because of the explosive black powder. I feel about in the blackness, find the powder sacks stacked up and run back in minutes, breathing heavily from the weight of the measured sacks in which the gunpowder charges are packed.
    â€˜Bosun, ease off the mainsail, let the Dutch think they can catch us. Not too much, though. We want to keep out of range of those damn thirty-two pounders,’ orders the Captain, quietly. ‘We have a few minutes now. Everyone take a deep breath and be calm.’
    Be calm? How? I look back at the massive ship and wonder if this is to be my last day on Earth. It certainly seems likely. My heart starts pounding so loudly I think everyone will be able to hear it.

B ATTLE
    â€˜Boy?’ calls the Captain, snapping me out of my daze.
    â€˜Captain?’
    â€˜If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it. And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son,’ he continues.
    â€˜Captain?’
    â€˜Not Mr Shakespeare this one time, boy, but a brand new poem by Mr Rudyard Kipling. Quite apt for this situation, don’t you think?’
    Quoting poetry as if he is in an English drawing room full of genteel ladies when we are facing certain death? Sometimes, I think the Captain is completely crazy.
    â€˜Boy, stick close by me now,’ he adds, breaking the calm. ‘I might need you when things start to get hot.’ The Captain stands to the left of Bosun Stevenson at the helm, where he can keep an eye on the binnacle, a small cabinet where the ship’s compass is mounted.
    â€˜First off you can get rid of this.’ He takes off his black peaked cap and hands it to me. ‘No need to make myself a target for all those Dutch sharpshooters they are sending aloft.’
    Without his cap, the Captain looks more like one of us and less like an officer, but not quite.
    â€˜Watch this next manoeuvre carefully,