The two naval cutters came on with the clockwork care of an execution.
Each twenty-eight-foot boat was pulled by twelve oars, blades striking the salty water in sharp rhythm that sent twin wakes of gray froth curling across the basin. In the waist of each craft sat twenty royal marines in scarlet surcoats, white cross-belts pipe-clayed to a chalky glare, flintlock muskets held upright between their knees with twenty-inch three-sided bayonets fixed.
In the bow of the lead cutter stood Corvin.
The privateer captain had washed the grease from his face. But his seal-hide coat was torn at the shoulder from his fall on the boat ramp, his eyes bloodshot with rage. In his right hand he held an unsheathed naval cutlass. In his left, a folded parchment stamped with the red wafer of the Port Admiral’s Office.
Beside him sat Lieutenant Pritchard of the Harbor Marine Detachment. A young officer with a high collar of silver lace, his hand resting on the handle knob of his dress saber, his jaw set in the rigid discomfort of a man ordered to perform an ugly duty before thousands of witnesses.
“Lay her alongside the starboard chains!” Corvin snarled to the coxswain. “Hook the tumblehome! Anyone who touches a boarding spar gets cold steel!”
