Chapter eleven
The BahamasThe next return run out, the Silver Sally steamed through the channel at a constant eight knots, north by west. Leaning over the port rail, Captain Denning made a mental note of Boulder Island, a nautical mile or more off starboard. The island, nicknamed by pilots earlier in the war, was actually a large, high rock. It was surrounded by sand and was nearly two hundred yards long, protruding defiantly above the deep waters off Nassau to a height of fifty feet at its center. Pilots were in the habit of sailing within a few hundred yards of it in order to follow a particular channel leading to and from Nassau.
“Put up the British flag,” Denning ordered Balsinger.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Denning looked the deck over, full of wood crates bound for Wilmington. Inside the c
