INFIDEL

They were in the morning watch. It was just after breakfast and a full day’s sailing out of Gibraltar when it happened. Nat was in his cabin catching up on some personnel records when heard one of the lookouts yell “Sail ho!” As Nat was running up on deck, he heard Marcus ask, “Where away?” The lookout responded, “Four points off our starboard bow and sailing east.” When Nat reached the quarterdeck, Marcus, who was the officer on watch said, “She’s four points off our starboard bow Captain and sailing east. But she’s too far away for us to see from the deck”. Nat asked, “Do we know who or what she is?” “Not yet”, replied Marcus. “She’ll have to get a bit closer before we know anything”. “A ship sailing in these waters and in that direction - this close to the African coast, hmm. I guess it could be anyone, but I would think either English, French or a Barbary State vessel. They are about the only ones with any reason to be in this area. Let’s see if she alters her course to come up to us enough to check us out.” Sure enough, the ship altered course to eventually converge on the Avenger. Nat decided to hold his course for now until the strange sail got close enough to identify. He thought, “If it wasn’t a Barbary State ship, he would run like the devil before the other ship had a chance to tag them. He wasn’t flying any flag anyway, so they would have to be right on them for any kind of identification.” Marcus asked the captain, “Should we go to battle stations sir?” “No”, answered Nat, “Let’s wait a bit. It will take her a good two hours before she is within any kind of range. Probably another half hour before we can get a good read on her since she isn’t flying any flags.” “We’ll just keep going the way we are going. Whoever she is, we want her to think we are just a small merchant. As big as she seems to be from this distance, if she’s a Barbary State vessel, she would have to be that 32 gun frigate of Algiers, the Sword of Allah. Could we be so lucky?” “If she’s anything other than a Barbary State vessel”, Nat said to Marcus, “we’ll pack on sail and run away from her. If she is Barbary State, we’ll draw her in close and sink her.” “How does that sound?” “Sounds good”, responded Marcus. “It could turn out to be our first real fighting test. If so, we’ll find out how we stack up against these Barbary State types pretty quick.” After a bit of time had passed, Nat said, “Marc, let me have that bring ‘em near. I think I can make out some of her features now.” Nat looked closely at the ship. “Well how about that”, whooped Nat, “we’re still pretty far away and she’s not flying a flag, but I can see those funny looking turbines they wear around their heads.” “No doubt that’s a frigate. And with those towels around their heads it’s Barbary State”, said Nat to Marcus. “That should make it the Sword of Allah”, thought Nat, “unless there is another Barbary State frigate out here we don’t know about. And I haven’t heard of one. It looks like we are going to be lucky enough to get a crack at her.” “My guess is that it would almost have to be the Algerine flagship, the Sword of Allah”, said Nat to Marcus, “since they are the only ones we know of that have a frigate. She’s probably working her way back to port. What luck!” “Marcus, I have the deck”, said Nat. “Mr. Travers, just continue on our course. We don’t want to draw any suspicions. We’ll let her come up to about 500 yards and then surprise her. With these new guns we have, we should be accurate enough at 500 yards to dismast her and then sink her. She won’t be expecting us to do anything.” “Marcus”, said Nat, “I need to talk with the men, but it needs to be below deck, out of sight of that ship.” Marcus had everyone assemble below deck so the Captain could talk with them. Nat went below and looked around at the men. He jumped up on a trunk so he could see and be seen. “Men”, he began, “we’re down here out of sight because that frigate out there is one of those Barbary State types, probably the Algerine flag ship, the Sword of Allah. We are in for a real fight.” The yells and hoorays from the crew was loud below deck. But there was no doubt these folks were ready for a fight. “My intentions are”, continued Nat, “to let her come up to us to about 500 yards. At that distance, our new long cannonades should be accurate enough.” Once again the yells and hoorays from the crew were loud. Most of these were coming from the gun crews. “Don’t you worry none Captain”, a gun crew member yelled, “we’ll take care of her.” Nat smiled and said, “Yes, I’m sure you will. We’ll more than likely want to do try to hit the crew hard with our first few shots. Then I want to dismast her. While she’s wallowing around in the water from being dismasted, I want to sink her. If we do this right, she won’t get any closer than 500 yards.” “Of course, once the masts are gone, there is no telling how she is going to react. But whatever way that might be, we will attach ourselves to her just like her shadow. We’ll follow her in any direction she may go, firing our guns the whole time.” “She will expect to come up right alongside us and that is exactly what we are going to let her think she is doing. We will open fire at 500 yards. That should surprise her. Plus, any shots she gets off at that distance won’t be very accurate. “She will want to take us as a prize so she’ll be trying to shoot out our rigging I don’t think we’ll have to worry much about any return fire. If we do this right, we shouldn’t get hurt, at least not too bad, and all we can ask for is that she’ll sink with all hands.” “If she ends up sinking with all hands, there is no way any word can get out about us and we won’t have to be looking over our shoulder for a big frigate sneaking up on us.” “Remember; we need to kill them all. If something should happen that we have to fight ‘em up close, kill ‘em all. No mercy – no quarter. That ship has to go down and everyone aboard her has to go too. There can’t be anyone left to tell a tale. Our very survival depends on it.”