Jolly Rodgers and the Colors

Chapter 3

       Adela was swabbing the already shining bow of the LaFayette, trying her best to blend in. Earlier that day they'd come across the wreckage of the USS Magnolia and the Grenadous, a Spanish pirate ship that'd been causing trouble for everyone, apparently, she'd finally met her end. Now they'd seen the USS Tiger Shark, a privateer ship that had potentially killed her father, she remembered the last time she'd seen him smiling at her and telling her everything would be okay, with that silly grin of his, right before he went rushing after his garrison unit to the fort, he'd died during the battle between the American ship and the French fort. She snapped out of her thoughts as the captain had finally ordered the Bow chasers to start opening fire and the roar of cannons and smell of the smoke drowned out everything else happening on the ship. They all fell short but it made her feel better to know she'd finally been able to find the crew responsible for her fathers death. As the bow chasers kept roaring, firing smoke and iron from its open maw, she looked up towards the decorated stern of the privateer ship, where she saw someone looking at their ship from the stern of the privateer vessel. She couldn't make out any details from where she was but she could tell he was tall, skinny and seemed to be looking for something on their ship. 'Odd...', Adela thought to herself.

     After a few minutes, the strange man left the stern and didn't come back for a while. She told her friend she'd made on board, named Louis, about it who suggested he tells the first mate. The first mate waved this information off believing it to be of no importance. After about an hour of firing the bow chasers with no success, the First mate yells to the crew, "Stop! We are only wasting our ammo! Firing into the water will do us no good!" As they continue on the tail of the tiger shark, they find nothing really happens, and the Tiger Shark is barely slower than them meaning their ship was slowly gaining on them. As the crew was resting below deck the quartermaster, first mate, and captain were discussing how they planned on taking the Tiger shark, while Adela was secretly listening in on how they were planning to pull it off. It was well armed and if they wanted they probably could be hitting their ship with the Stern chasers if they pleased.

    The question was why, why weren't they already, as Adela thought about that information she heard a quieter noise, it sounded like wood hitting the water, not that that in itself was odd, what was odd was, it sounded different from the ship. Adele went above decks, a few of the crew on break gave her a friendly wave or nod but didn't pay much mind to her. Once she reached the deck she looked around the sides of the ship for anything that may have fallen overboard, as she was finishing walking the perimeter she noticed a barrel that had just reached the bow on the starboard side, she followed it, curious of what may be in it. As she opened her mouth to call it out she heard a gunshot and then a massive explosion sent her flying across the deck. She sat up sort of groggy and saw the men working sporadically to put out the fire and fix the massive hole that had been punched under the water line of their ship. An officer was shouting orders out to the crew while a couple of sailors grabbed her and Brought her down below decks to the doctor but she couldn't hear them, she just looked dumbly at the sailors and the doctor before passing out.