Take the courses. Brace the main and mizzen aback. Haul in the guns. Close all the gun ports. You’re letting up? With the damage done to the rig, I can’t maneuver our broadside around fast enough to be of any effect. The sloops are too nimble. But hauling in the guns? They’ll board us easily.
We’ve become this far because when Flint and I are of the same mind, there’s no obstacle yet encountered that we cannot surmount. I don’t know why that is, he doesn’t know why that is, but it is. To elevate one of us over the other, even as a fiction, seems to me to be tempting fate in a most dangerous way. And… And it upsets you because you believe he is your friend?