Anne Dray's Arc

Chapter 24 of 28

The route was safe now in two minds. That freed the fleet to move, but it also left one job unfinished. Anne stood on the weathered dock and looked at the harbor mouth. Half a chain lay across it. The rest sat coiled on the planks beside a rusted anchor and stacked crates. If a Crown ship found the cut before that chain closed, nothing would stop it from sailing straight into her base. Grimjack came down the dock behind her, slower than he used to walk. The fever had taken weight off him, but his eyes were sharp. He studied the gap in the chain and the mooring posts that still bore old burn scars. "They trapped a crew here once with a boom just like it," he said. "Then they burned them inside. Close it or leave." "We close it," Anne said. Chris hauled the loose chain toward the far post. He said nothing extra. He worked. Sweat ran down the scar on his face as he dragged link after link across the dock. "Anchor's the problem," he said, and stopped. He pointed at the rusted anchor meant to weight the chain's end. Its ring had cracked. It would not hold under a ship's push. Tom Harker ran up from the water's edge, breathing hard. The cabin boy was the youngest aboard, and he did not waste words. "Claire's on the mast," he said. "She saw a sail. South of the cut. Coming this way." Anne felt her chest go tight. One Crown scout, and the chain still open. She looked at the cracked anchor, then the crates. "We don't have time for a new anchor. We weight it with what's here." Chris understood first. He kicked the lid off the top crate. Iron shot. He began lashing the chain's end to the heaviest crates on the dock. Tom hauled rope. Grimjack called the count so they pulled together. Anne threw her own weight on the line beside them. The last link swung out over the water. Anne dropped the loaded crates off the dock's edge. They plunged and dragged the chain taut. It rose from the seabed, spanning the mouth from post to post, an arm's length under the surface. A hull would strike it and stop. The sail grew larger to the south. Claire's voice carried down. "Small ship. One mast. She's turning." A pause. "She turned. She's running north to report." Anne watched it go. The chain held. The mouth was shut. Her base was safe from a boom now, and from a rush through the cut. But the scout had seen the harbor. It carried the location north to the Crown. They knew the cut was here, and they knew it was hers. Anne had closed her door just as the enemy learned exactly where to knock.