The Smuggler's Curse by Norman Jorgensen Page B

boy,’ he commands. ‘We can outrun them easily, but we can’t outrun a broadside of cannon balls. So we have to box clever. This next little trick has saved our lives before, and it may do the same for you one day. Pay close attention, and watch your head. When the boom whips across, this time, it will be vicious. Could take your head clean off at the shoulders.’
    In spite of the increasing wind, we keep hearing snatches of kettledrums in the distance, beating the Dutch to their stations on the frigate.
    Over the next half-hour, the frigate grows slowly but steadily closer to our stern until we can just hear the Dutch shouting at us. I cannot understand their words, but it iseasy to get their meaning, and they sound confident. They have two hundred or more men to our twelve, and we only have a handful of small guns, whereas their ship bristles with thirty-two-pound monsters that fire cannonballs as big as a man’s head.
    â€˜Listen to them. Pride comes before a fall, eh, Bosun?’ laughs the Captain, quietly. I cannot understand how he can remain so calm.
    Moments later, from behind me, I hear Bosun Stevenson begin humming the hymn, Abide With Me.
    The Captain begins softly singing the words, almost to himself. ‘The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.’
    One by one, the rest of the crew join in, even Rowdy, who hardly ever says a word.
    Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
    The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
    When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
    Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
    Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
    Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
    Change and decay in all around I see;
    O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
    I am surprised and moved by the melancholic harmony all around me. I have no idea how we can possibly survive this. None at all. Even if we surrender, the Dutch will probably hang us as pirates, or worse, as spies. Either way, we’ll be dancing the hempen jig from a yardarm before this day is out. I look about. The men know they are facing almost certain death, but none seems frightened anymore, just rather resigned to their fate. Other than the Bosun, the crew are not generally religious, but the gentle tune appears to comfort them.
    â€˜Ready men,’ Captain Bowen shouts suddenly. ‘You know how it goes. In five.’ He nods his head five times, counting the seconds. ‘Now!’
    The Bosun immediately spins the wheel to port. The crew let go the jib sheets, and the jibs fill with wind, then collapse, then fill again as they are pulled over to the other side, dragging the bow of our boat smoothly around, spilling the wind in the mainsail. The boom swings across the entire stern faster than an arrow and crashes into place with a mighty whack. The mainsail immediately fills with the rising breeze again. The Captain has jibed across the wind. Now the Black Dragon beats back out to sea, in almost the opposite direction, while the Willem billows its way relentlessly towards the beach, far too quickly it seems to me. The sand is now only a few hundred yards ahead.
    â€˜Vuur de kanonnen, wanneer het schip binnen bereik!’ yells an officer on the frigate.
    The Captain laughs. ‘They’ll be fortunate if they can swing that. They can fire all they like, but we won’t be in range. Look at the angle the deck is on. It’ll take them ages to re-sight. It looks like we might’ve caught the Dutch with their pantaloons down.’
    The first frigate gun roars out, then the second, third and fourth, but their shots land short, way off our port side and behind us, sending up harmless sprays in our growing wake as we slice back towards the open sea.
    The massive ship is only shouting distance away, so we can hear the officers yell frantically. Sailors scurry up the ratlines and out onto the yardarms in a desperate effort to reef in the square sails and cut the ship’s speed. The