A King`s Commander l-7

by Dewey Lambdin

  An infinitesimal gay splotch of color burst forth upon her upper yards, vivid bits of flapping cloth. She was making a signal, as she came about hard on the wind. But, to whom? he wondered. It was hard to make out- plain red square flag atop, what seemed like the Blue Peter next-below, a yellow-white beneath that, and a fourth he couldn't make out. That, of a certainty, wasn't a recognition signal in the Howe System he knew; nor was it one of the private signals to identify one Royal Navy ship to another!

  He turned back to the ship up in the nor'east. Sure enough, she was replying. Making a single hoist of what he took to be a red square with a white speck in the center. A one-flag signal-that could only be a reply to an order. More like, an affirmative. And it was not a British "Yes"! And was she turning, too, foreshortening the broadside view of her upper sails? Also coming onto the wind? Merchantmen had no desire to speak each other with flags. Nor be curious about strange vessels. A merchantman sailing independently would shy from the sight of any other ship, even were HMS Victory to heave up alongside with an invitation to dinner!

  They had to be French!

  A brace of frigates, he decided, out scouting in the van of the main body of that fleet Howe had been seeking. And had just discovered a weak and tasty treat!

  "Deck, there!" he shouted. "Pipe 'All Hands'! Mister Knolles? Make sail! Royals, t'gallants, and stays'ls!"

  A little faster now, though heeled perhaps a bit too far hard-over, Jester began to trundle along, adding another knot to her speed. To keep their minds off it, and prepare them for the worst, Alan told his officers to practice gun drill.

  Five weeks in port, and not a shot fired! he lamented.

  Port admirals didn't like the sound of guns going off in their harbors. Bad for their digestions, he supposed; interrupts any naps they take. And was a "waste" of good gunpowder that they'd have to replace, at Admiralty expense, before a ship sailed.

  Jester had a good warrant gunner and mate in Bittfield and Mister Crewe; her quarter-gunner was a Prussian named Rahl, who claimed that he'd been one of Friedrich the Great's artillery masters. Cockerels and Victorys, Agamemnons and a few others, were experienced. But except for dry-firing, mostly running-in, loading, and running-out work with the new-comes, his guns wouldn't be well-served. Not after the landsmen and Marines, who would be forced to assist on the tackles, were deafened and quivered to a state of nerves by the first blasts. And half of that had been instruction, employing only a single piece at a time, mostly letting them watch, before trying them out at the least-skillful jobs.

  There'd only been a week of dry-firing, using an entire broadside at once, and that wasn't nearly enough.

  "Would you say this seems a bit familiar, sir?" Knolles said, after going below to change into clean clothing, and silk stockings and shirt, which were easier for the surgeon to draw out from wounds.

  "It appears pretty much the way we got Jester, sir." Lewrie nodded, playing along in spirit with Knolles's humor. The officer was possessed of a very dry wit to begin with, and was purposefully japing, for the crew's benefit, to make them think that things were not quite as bad as they appeared.

  "Damme, Mister Knolles," Alan said more loudly. Again, for the crew's ears. "Chased by two corvettes. Shot one to flinders, and took this'un! Do you think, sir, that the French'll oblige me a second time, and make me a post-captain, when we serve these, alike?"

  He got the appreciative laugh he'd expected, though most of his inexperienced new men merely tittered nervously; and that only because the older hands had done so.

  French frigates, he pondered, pacing aft to the taffrail for a peek. Longer on the waterlines, perhaps 120 feet, to his 100. They'd be at least a full knot faster. The one down to the nor'east was too far off, and with only a knot advantage, would take until sundown to catch him up. No, the main threat was the one to the east, now almost abeam. She'd cut the corner on Jester, sail a shorter course, with a half-a-knot to a. full knot greater speed than her consort, because she wasn't beating to weather, but was sailing a point "free" on a damned close reach, to intercept off Jesters larboard bows.

  When she came up to shooting range, Lewrie decided, he'd have no choice but to wear off the wind himself, reach across the wind due west, to escape,/ar out into the Atlantic. Scouting frigates, that'd be most likely, he thought; out ahead of the French fleet's van division, looking for Howe's fleet, so they could steer their admiral into a massive battle. If Jester showed no sign of leading them to Howe's main body, they might break off their chase, he most fervently hoped; perhaps by sundown, at the latest?

  "We're nigh on 350 miles out to sea," he mused; "350 miles west of Ushant or Land's End, for God's sake! What do they think I'm leadin' 'em to-the Happy Isles of the West?" he whispered.

  And the weather…! Alan felt like ordering "All Hands" up on the gangways to begin whistling, if it would stir up one more -pint of wind. That remained steady from the SW or SSW, and none too strong. The morning was less humid than the day before, less dew and mist upon the decks at dawning. The clouds were higher and thinner, a first thin coat of whitewash brushed over cerulean blue, with many traceried gaps of open sky. Not superb sailing weather, but no sign of bad weather, of a certainty, which might bring a rising of the winds. For the Atlantic in early summer, it was almost warm and pleasant, too.

  Just warm enough a day, as it progressed, to bring a stronger wind as the seas warmed. Or enough heat to stifle any winds, leaving all three warships boxing the compass on lying little zephyrs. And a longer and heavier French frigate might still coast through the dead spots, maintain her steerageway even in very light air, whereas the lighter, shorter ship would struggle and flag…

  "Mister Knolles," Lewrie called out, coming back to the center of the quarterdeck. "We'll run in the starboard battery to loading position, and bowse the carriages to the deck ringbolts. Then, open the larboard gun ports and run out the larboard battery to firing position. That should shift enough weight to set her flatter on her keel."

  "Aye aye, sir," Knolles responded. "Mister Bittfield?"

  If that didn't work, next he'd try shifting all the round-shot into garlands on the larboard side, by hand, then crack the water casks and use the wash-deck pumps to "start" all that weight over the side, to lighten her. He'd heard of people jettisoning cumbersome cargo, even artillery, during a stern chase. Of course… most of the time, that'd been the heroic captains doing the chasing, not the chased. And the prize money afterward paid for all.

  "It occurs fine, sir…" Knolles began in a soft voice, minus his confident japery, and a tad shy of making a suggestion at all.

  "Aye, Mister Knolles?" Alan rejoined with a smile.

  "Well, Captain…" Knolles coughed into his fist nervously as he dared advise a senior officer. "Should we stand on, close-hauled… uhm…"

  "Surely, our brief spell together, since Gibraltar, sir," Alan chuckled to put him at his ease, "and you're still afraid I'll bite? Ease her a point free, is that your thinking?"

  "Aye, sir!" Knolles grinned shyly. "Spin the chase out. Make her work harder for her supper."

  "An excellent idea, Mister Knolles. Very well, ease her. Wear us a point free, off the wind, so Jester II sail even flatter on her quick-work. So it takes yon Frog another hour to get within range-to-random shot. If you would be so kind, sir?"

  "Aye aye, Captain," Knolles replied, turning to issue orders to bracetenders, idlers, and helm, the forecastle men who tended the jib sheets and the bosun and his mate.

  No way we'd ever outfoot her, and cross ahead, anyway, Lewrie told himself. She'll be up, even if she doesn't head-reach farther upwind of us, by dusk, for certain. With the wind gauge, and us to her lee.

  Jester fell off from close-hauled to a fair wind, heading west-by-south, sometimes luffing up as the wind backed no more than half a point. She settled down with less heel to starboard, as the braces and jibs were eased a trifle, the yards swung around with the leading larboard yard-ends not quite so aligned fore-and-aft. App
arent wind eased, no longer keening through her rigging, softer on the ears, so conversations did not have to be shouted above the rushing.

  "Hark'ee, sir!" Buchanon called, speaking for perhaps a second time in the last hour, as Three Bells of the Forenoon Watch chimed.

  "Hmm?" Lewrie asked, wondering if there was something he had forgotten that he'd ordained to happen at half-past nine a.m.

  "Thunder, sir," Buchanon oracled, sniffing at the wind with his large, crooked nose, like a fresh-awakened mastiff.

  A squall line, that'd be a blessing, Alan wished; bags of rain and thunder, somewhere off to windward. Dive into it before the foe did, and tack away, leaving him to play "silly buggers" with himself.

  "But, there's not a storm cloud in sight, Mister Buchanon," he was forced to say, after a long, and hopeful, search of the horizon.

  "Thunder, sir," Buchanon insisted. "Hark'ee."

  Lewrie went up to the windward rail, left the quarterdeck to amble forrud along the larboard gangway, to get away from the noise a ship makes, or a crew makes. Something… but what? Once more he raised his telescope, resting it on the foremast stays, this time.

  Nope, nary a smudge upwind. The southern horizon was knife-edged, now that the mists and haze had cleared. Roily, since waves made it, but… was there more cloud just looming over the sea, far down sou'west? Not squall-gray or blue-gray, but…

  Damme if it don't sound like thunder, he enthused; off and away but a roll of thunder, nonetheless. A faint sound that was not the wind's flutter about his head teased at his hearing.

  Or was it a devoutly wished-for fantasy?

  Again came something that might have been, if only

  "Bosun Porter, pipe the 'still'!" he snapped.

  He'd served captains who did it; made their people work quiet, with pipes, halliard twitches and finger snaps as orders to the hands their slaves. After Cockerel, a ship run dead-silent would always strike him as Devilish-queer. He'd much prefer raucous caterwauling. At least that bespoke a crew with spirit! He'd made a vow he'd never be the sort of captain who demanded the "still." Yet, here he was…

  Yes, it was thunder! Very far off, up-to-weather thunder, on the wind. "Thankee, Mister Porter, you may pipe the hands free, now," he said, with a grin on his face. And kept that grin plastered on-looking like the cat that lapped the cream-all the way aft past the curious sailors on the gangway or below at the guns in the waist. And thinking that perhaps he owed little Josephs a lapful of gingersnaps, for whistling up a saving storm! Thinking, too, that he owed Aeolus a debt, as well. The wind-god was an old slow-coach sometimes, in dealing retribution to cocksure sailors… but he got there, in the end!

  "Mister Buchanon is right, gentlemen," he told the quarterdeck. "I heard thunder on the horizon. Under the horizon, to us, of yet, but… there is a faint smudge of something stormlike visible, up to weather. I'd admire we hardened up half-a-point to west-by-south, half south, so we reach it in time to befuddle yon Frog, and lose him in the squalls."

  One hour more, standing on, on Jester's fair wind, and the heat of the day increasing. She began to heel a tiny bit more to starboard as the wind freshened, even with her artillery run out to balance her.

  It was piping up, at last! Not gusting, never approaching any blusters, but it was rising slowly, the nearer they sailed toward the single tumulus of cloud on the sou'west horizon. And beyond the main cloud mass, there appeared more mere suggestions of clouds, fuller and more substantial than the mare's tails aloft, seductively tantalizing in round cumulous detail.

  Pristine white, those clouds, though, for such a din of thunder that came faintly, but more often, under the rush-keening of the wind. No black or blue-gray hazes of an advancing storm front, no trace of an expected towering thunderhead. Nor of the vast sweep of gloom, which should be swathing half the weather horizon. Nor the flickering sizzle of lightning, which accompanied all the faint thunder-growl.

  Lewrie began to get a queasy feeling, though he masked it well, by pretending to take a nap in a wood-and-canvas deck chair with wide, well-spaced feet.

  "Deck, there!" the foremast lookout finally hollered. "They be tops'ls, on th' 'orizon! Dead on th' bows!"

  "How many tops'ls?" Lieutenant Knolles shouted back, with the aid of a brass speaking trumpet, as Alan pretended to "wake."

  "Dozens, sir!" came the reply. "One point off th' larboard bow, t' two point off th' starb'rd!"

  Lewrie arose and took a catlike stretch.

  "Well, could be 'at grain convoy," Buchanon opined. "Hun'r'ds o' ships, I heard, Mister Knolles. Indiamen with New Orleans rice… more with corn an' wheat from th' Chesapeake. 'Ose Ew-nited States of America payin' eir debt t'France. And, makin' th' Devil's own profit, I'll warrant. As arse-o'er-tit'z France 's farms an' markets are since their revolution, 'tis import 'r starve this summer. Why their Navy's out… t' p'rtect th' food, 'r the country goes under. Sounds like we found 'em, just'z oP Admiral Howe lit into 'em, sir!"

  "Somebody's lit into someone, Mister Buchanon, ' Lewrie agreed. Warily. There was too much thunder for ships of the line in General Chase of prizes. No convoy could ever make such a din, either.

  "Perhaps we might gobble one up, Captain?" Knolles asked. He came of a good family, yes, but they weren't that rich, and prize money of his own would be more than welcome.

  "I'm going aloft, again. Mister Knolles, might you lend me your glass?"

  Forward this time, to scale the foremast, right up to the crosstrees to join the lookout, a spry young topman named Rushing.

  "Mine arse on a bandbox!" Lewrie muttered, once he'd had his long look. "That's no grain convoy."

  "Nossir, it ain't," Rushing agreed breezily.

  " 'Bout twelve miles off, would you say, Rushing?"

  "Ay, Cap'um. 'Bout that."

  "Be up to them…" He pulled out his new watch. It was nearly gone eleven of the forenoon. An hour-and-a-half… two hours, and they would be up within spitting distance. Or shooting distance.

  Without another word, Lewrie took hold of a standing backstay and clambered down it, legs locked and going hand-over-hand, like any topman. Hating every nutmeg-shrinking moment of it, of course, with nothing but oak to stop his fall from nearly 100 feet above the deck, should he slide too fast and burn his hands, or swing away and dangle by his fists alone.

  Once on the quarterdeck again, he gathered his breath by taking another peek at the French frigate off to the east. Their closest pursuer was about five miles off, hull-up now, and driving hard. She had slowly gained on Jester, closing the distance between them, and, more importantly, crabbed up a'weather a touch, so she would still hold the wind gauge when they finally met.

  "Hard on the wind, Mister Knolles," Lewrie ordered. "Lay her as close as she'll bear. Hoist every scrap of canvas, 'cept for stuns'ls. We've a race to win."

  "Aye, sir," Knolles replied, before turning to issue orders.

  "Sorry to disabuse you, Mister Buchanon," Lewrie told him with another forced grin, "but we haven't discovered their grain convoy, no. 'Tis their entire Biscay fleet, yonder. And ours. Having at each the other. That's the thunder we've been chasing all morning!"

  "Wull, stap me, sir." Buchanon sighed, blanching a bit.

  "Another hour or so, and we'll hear all the 'thunder' a man'd ever wish." Lewrie chuckled, genuinely amused this time. "Pass the word for Mister Giles!"

  "Aye, sir?" the purser inquired from the midships hatchway.

  "Mister Giles, I'd admire should you issue the midday meal as soon as we've completed bracing in and making more sail," Lewrie told him. "The rum issue, too. Today is a Banyan Day, is it not, sir?"

  "Well, aye, sir…" Giles frowned.

  "Little need for the galley fires, then."

  On Banyan Days, the issue was cold victuals; small-beer, cheese, and biscuit, perhaps with the eternal pea soup, but no meat to be simmered in the steep-tubs.

  "On the wind, sir," Knolles reported.

  "Very good, Mister Knolles. Once the hand
s have eat, and drunk their cheer, well beat to quarters. Say, 'bout… half-past noon, or so? We've a sea battle before us. From a point off the larboard bow to two points to starboard, and we're going to have to tack around the short end, if the fleet that lies alee turns out to be hostile. Let us hope the Frogs are on the far side, holding the weather gauge. But, be ready for the worst," Lewrie explained to them all. "And, must we tack around to get inside the protection of our own liners, we're going to have to deal with this bastard frigate."

  "Aye, sir." Knolles nodded grimly, plucking at his clean silk.

  "Thunder, by Jesus!" Alan snorted. "Mine arse on a bandbox, Mister Buchanon. Mine arse on a bandbox!"

  And laughed out loud as he strolled aft to study the frigate in his glass, leaving them all perplexed by such good cheer.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Hands at quarters, standing by their charged, shotted and now-primed artillery pieces, swaying as Jester rocked and rolled over the sea. Gun captains would fire them with modern flint-lock strikers in lieu of ancient slow-match linstocks; but slow-match sizzled slowly, wound 'round the mid-deck water tubs, just in case.

  The French fleet, unfortunately for Lewrie, were the fighting ships that lay to leeward, those closest to him. There had to be at least thirty of them, it appeared, a ragged procession of proud line-of-battle ships- 74's, 80's, and larger, right up to massive three-decker flagships of 120 guns-in a tormented, shot-racked in-line-ahead formation that headed due west, stretching east-to-west across Jester s track for nearly three miles, like an oak and iron reef. It was no longer the tidy arrangement it had seemed as they'd approached; there were gaps between ships greater than the rigorously ordained half-a-cable separation. There were gaps aloft, too, where ships had lost topmasts and yards. Still, they doggedly plodded west, barring Jester a path as she beat close-hauled to weather, west-by-south.

  Safety, unfortunately, lay on the other side of that bellowing reef of warships. Howe's thirty or so liners had gained the wind gauge and followed a parallel course to the French, lost in the foggy towers of gun smoke that rose from every ship.