The closest Harriet had ever come to a battle was the day that there was a riot on the docks over the taxes the King was taking for his wars. She had looked at the violence and wondered why they were doing it. She stood to one side and at the end of the day her step0father came in holding armfuls of stolen goods.

A web of grapples tied the ship she was now trapped upon to the bigger vessel, the crew swarming over the gap like wild, colourful monkeys. Soon the yells and clamour of battle filled the once clam sea air, and Harriet sat in her cabin cursing the day she boarded the ship. It sounded like the battle was turning, with the Captain giving increasingly panicked orders to his men. She heard the battle overspill on to the boards of their own ship, and fear gripped her for a second. She breathed a sigh, she could always say she was a prisoner of the pirates.

She jumped as the door slammed open, followed closely by a man with greed in his eyes. He was wearing a red tunic, torn in places. His unshaven face was a grimy mess of crooked teeth and burned skin. She screamed, trying to get away in the tiny cabin. The man took one faltering step forward before pitching over, his head getting caught in her hammock. He lay there, breathing his last before her eyes, leaking his life out onto the floor from a great cut in his back. Harriet stood by the wall, watching as the man went from being alive to being dead. The sound of the a battle faded into the background as she looked into his eyes and saw the light flee to somewhere else.

She took a tentative step forward, taking up his heavy sword in fascination. The battle thundered back into her mind, and she heard Julian shouting above the din, and his voice was nothing like the soft mannered gentleman she had known. He was filled with rage, and she crept to the door to see what was happening.

The deck of the ship was covered with men, and battle a maelstrom of noise. If the other crew had not been wearing red, she would never have recognised the difference. She stood in the doorway, just watching. From nowhere a man was running towards her with his cutlass raised, murder in his eyes. She could do onth9ing more than bring the heavy blade she was holding up to meet him. The extra weight made her drop it, clanging into the deck.

A fat man was clambering across the gap between the two ships, breathing heavily. He was dressed in richer garments than the rabble on deck and as he stood on the deck of the their ship he looked extremely smug.

From near the mast, where he was fighting back to back with the cook, the Captain roared and thundered towards the man, sword raised. Harriet saw what was going to happen. The small man was hiding a pistol behind his back. She doubted whether the new people would show any more mercy than the old, since they were all men. But the Devil she knew was not so evil as the unknown. With that she clumsily seized a fallen musket from the ground, taking a wobbly aim on the other man. The crack of the shot rang out, and the smug look was wiped from the fat mans face just as he was bringing up his own gun to finish the Captain. The man stood in dumb silence at what had happened. Harriet leant on the musket, shaking with adrenaline.

Seeing their captain dead on the enemy deck, the remaining redcoats lost all fight and fled. Unfortunately, on the high seas, there is no where to flee to. They were trapped.