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T he night sky was thick with clouds and as black as the sails that now festooned all three masts.

At first glance, it seemed as though there might be a moon up there somewhere.

But as the Black Wind moved stealthily and invisibly closer, they could see it was the reflection of the lights blazing from the decks of the British fleet that caused the underbellies of the clouds to glow.

Fonteyne brought his ship to a gliding stop, cautiously well out of range of any possible glint or spark that might betray their presence.

There were no lights on board, no cooking fire, not even a pipe.

Cloths covered the huge brass deck lanterns at bow and stern, as well as anything else that might reflect a wink of light.

Two longboats with their deadly cargo of black powder were being towed a safe distance behind.

The casks were covered under a sheet of canvas on top of which were heaped dozens of pineapples and coconuts.

Billy had set the fuses herself on each boat, winding them around the casks like long black snakes.

Stern warnings were given to leave the boats the instant they were lit.

Four other longboats were lowered, these filled with baskets of fresh fruit and fish. They would approach the ships first to test their welcome and if all went well, the two fire ships would sail in after them.

Each boat had a fishing lamp on the bow, hung in such a way as to cast light over the produce.

Earlier in the day, Digby Fitch had come to Rose and said he had been a fisherman long before he had signed on her father’s ship as crew, and he would be proud enough to burst all his buttons if he could represent Alexander St. Clare in the daring raid.

He was put in charge of the first four “fishing” boats while Rose and Duardo helmed the first fireship.

Fonteyne and Jose Mercado worked the oars in the second fireship.

They had darkened their faces and hands to look like local natives.

All of them were dressed alike in loose trousers and striped shirts, with round woolen caps pulled low over their brows.

Rose had a spot of trouble confining the full mass of her hair under the cap but that was remedied by tying the sides down with lengths of twine.

The water was smooth with shallow ripples on the surface, and the rowing was easy.

Within a half mile of the fleet, Fonteyne stopped his boat and waited for Rose to come alongside.

They watched as the ‘fishing boats’ went on ahead and approached the first brightly lit frigate, the HMS Romulus .

They were hailed by several score of crew and soldiers standing at the rail.

After some discussion took place between Digby Fitch and the quartermaster, nets were lowered and baskets were loaded and winched on board.

Rose wiped the palms of her hands on her trouser knees and tried not to think of the amount of black powder they were sitting on.

Fonteyne had raised his long glass and was studying the ships. “Bloody shame,” he murmured.

“What is a bloody shame?” Rose asked quietly.

He smirked and reached across the gap to hand Rose his spyglass. “Nothing except wishing I could make one raking pass with full broadsides. Look at how they are sitting … like a row of skittles.”

Rose raised her long glass and saw that the fleet was not grouped together in a lazy cluster as they had appeared to be from a distance. They were anchored a cable’s length apart in a staggered, shallow crescent, nearly a mile long with their bows facing away from the distant shoreline.

Fonteyne shook his head. “Old naval tactics dictated that ships should meet their enemies head on and battle it out until the other was destroyed or fell away. Nicholls has apparently decided that any enemy ships they might encounter would abide by the same gentlemanly rules. Nelson blew those tactics out of the water at Trafalgar, which Nicholls might have known if he’d ever left port.

The admiral cut through the line between enemy ships, which permitted one of his ships to fire broadsides from the starboard and port at the same time, causing twice as much damage in one pass. ”

Rose glanced across. Sebastien looked as calm as a choir boy.

“Aye,” he said. “I’d give my weight in gold to have the Black Wind under my feet at the moment.”

“Thankfully you do not,” Rose murmured. She passed the spyglass back and felt the usual knot of tightness in her chest that was there before every battle.

“The last net is going up,” she said. “I will aim for the bow, you for the stern.” She turned to Duardo. “When the others are clear we row like the devil is in our wake and when we have enough speed for the boat to reach the hull, we light the fuses, tie off the rudder, and jump.”

Duardo grinned and took up the oars.

The two longboats were heavy, and it took extra effort to get them moving toward the Romulus , but when they were within a hundred yards of the hull, Duardo discreetly shipped his oars and wrapped a length of cable around the rudder.

Rose lit the ends of the fuses in the wick of the lantern and side by side, the two rolled silently over the sides of the longboats, arms and legs pumping furiously to swim clear.

Rose and Duardo were first to reach the escaping longboats and were thrown cables to catch.

The men rowing did not stop to take them on board but dragged them behind for another hundred yards or so.

At one point the rope twisted around her ankle and pulled her under, but she was able to cut herself free.

She rose to the surface again, the knife clenched between her teeth, and felt Duardo catch her up around the waist and keep her head above the water.

When they were finally hauled on board, Rose knuckled the salt water out of her eyes and tried to see if Fonteyne and Mercado had made it away safely.

At first she saw nothing, but then a series of tremendous booms thundered across the water as one of the fireships exploded in a massive, white-hot fireball of sparks and flame.

It was short of the Romulus’ hull, but a thick cloud of glowing hot sparks descended on the upper deck like a fiery hailstorm.

As more of the casks exploded, more sparks and flaming debris was thrown on board the Romulus accompanied by shouts and screams as the men scrambled to avoid the raining streaks of fire.

Red-hot cinders landed in the bundles of sails furled in the yards, and stuck to the tar-soaked cables and lines tethering them.

More explosions followed as casks were blasted apart and sent splatters of flaming pitch onto the hull.

Fonteyne’s longboat, however, was nowhere in sight.

“’He took it ‘round the stern,” Stubb informed her.

“Around the stern? That wasn’t the plan.”

“Mayhap he were thinkin’ of a different plan.”

Rose was about to unleash a volley of curses when there was a second round of monstrous explosions. They came from the far side of the Romulus , where a sister ship was riding at anchor a hundred yards off her larboard beam.

“He went for a second ship,” she muttered in disbelief. “The bloody fool will have twice as far to swim now!”

“There!” Stubb stabbed a finger in the air.

The glow from the erupting fireballs lit the surface of the sea like molten lava and Rose could see two bobbing heads as Fonteyne and Mercado swam hard to circle around the hull of the Romulus and catch up to the longboats.

“Stubb, stop rowing!” Rose shouted. “Turn the boat around, we have to pick them up.”

Explosions cracked the night air as the casks blew up in a furious display of hellfire.

The crews on board the other longboats had stopped rowing to cheer the success and might have continued doing so if not for the sight of a dozen gunports opening on the Romulus and the black snouts of cannon being run out.

Even as Rose’s boat completed the turn and started back toward the conflagration, she waved the other boats off and shouted, “Row, dammit, they’re preparing to fire.”

No sooner did the warning leave her lips when the upper bank of guns on the Romulus roared to life, spitting clouds of smoke and iron shot out of the muzzles. Most whistled by harmlessly overhead but one ball was lucky and smashed into the mast of one of the longboats causing it to capsize.

There were other popping sounds coming from the deck of the British ship and Rose could see soldiers leaning over the rails and firing muskets down into the water.

“The bastards be shootin’ at ‘em!” Stubb shouted. “They’ll be shootin’ at us soon if we don’t turn around.”

“Keep rowing!” Rose ordered.

The cannon on board the Romulus were pulled in and reloaded.

The second broadside whistled past so close overhead that Rose could smell the sulphur from the rush of hot air.

It met with the same lack of success, and although the guns were hauled in again, the third round was delayed as all on board struggled to put out the dozens of fires on the deck and in the yards.

All three masts were blazing like a Christmas tree.

Men were jumping overboard to escape the heat and flames.

Rose kept her gaze locked on the churning surface of the water.

Sebastien and Mercado had ducked under when the muskets had spat lead into the waves around them, and for longer than Rose thought they could hold their breath, they remained swimming under the water.

Eventually, the two heads broke to the surface again, arms straining to widen the distance from the frigates.

An hour later, when the longboats and crews were back on board the Black Wind , Fonteyne wasted no time in ordering the ship to get under way.

While the great black beast shook out her dark sails, Sebastien and Rose stood on the quarterdeck, glasses pressed to their eyes, focussed on the distant glare of fires.

“What were you thinking going after the second ship?” Rose asked, her anger still high, having had little opportunity to confront him until now.

“I wasn’t thinking, I was just doing. And it seemed a good idea at the time.”

“There were soldiers shooting at you! You could have been killed.”

He lowered the glass and looked at her. “A famous Roman general said: Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back.”

“I don’t feel much like smiling. I feel like scratching your eyes out.”

“Whereas I feel like taking you below and celebrating our little triumph properly.”

“You barely had enough energy to climb on board the longboat when we collected you.”

He bent his head, lowering his mouth to within a breath of hers. “I assure you, Captain, I am so far from being exhausted at the moment that I may not be able to wait until we reach my cabin.”

“Ah, Jaysus,” Stubb said, coming up behind them. “Do the pair o’ ye think about aught else?”

Rose sighed and glared at her navigator. “Indeed, I still think about tossing you overboard. A lot.”

“Mout be a blessin’,” he muttered as he kept walking past. “Wouldn’t ‘ave to listen to the pair o’ ye actin’ like cats in heat.”