To Honor We Call You: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 9)

by Scott Cook

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Albury, a tall lean man in his late twenties replied and turned toward the taffrail, Mr. Curtis, signal request identity, if you please.”

  John Curtis, the third lieutenant and mate of the watch, turned to the teenage boy next to him and repeated the order.

  The boy, a short, squat midshipman named Church, the signal midshipman, bent to his signal locker and he and his mate sent the appropriate flags up the signal halyard to the mizzen peek. The flags broke out and streamed out to looward.

  A few moments passed before Curtis lowered his own glass and turned to Albury, “Ships signaling, sir. USN Penguin from the smaller and USN Deliverance from the larger.”

  Albury turned to Pellew and repeated this information. Somewhat superfluous, as young Church was no more than fifteen feet away from Pellew. Yet the naval practice of repeating important information in this way gave a sense of order and stability to any situation. It also ensured less inaccuracy in the delivery of vital information.

  “Deliverance and Penguin, sir,” Albury said to his captain. “I don’t believe they’re to be found on our list.”

  “I believe you’re in the right of it, Peter,” Pellew agreed. “Check it in any case, of course… but I believe we’re being practiced upon. Those sails appear just a bit too new and clean to my eye… The American Navy, like ours, spends a great deal of time at sea… no, Mr. Albury…. no. I’ll wager a fistful of guineas that we’re being stalked by a pair of Frenchmen.”

  Albury’s tanned face split into a grin, “No bet here, sir. They certainly sail like Frenchmen. Or Americans, for that matter. They’ve got the legs of us on this tack and point of sail… shall I clear for action?”

  “Just so,” Pellew remarked, opening his glass again. “I’m of your mind, entirely, Mr. Albury… they’re hull up now… but we’ve got at least two hours before they’re within range of our stern chasers, God help the poor fools. Let’s have the hands fed before the galley fires are tossed over the side. I wouldn’t turn away a bite, myself.”

  As Albury moved off to put these orders into action, Pellew considered on what his first officer had said. The French did build beautiful ships. Better sailors than British ships in general. And the Americans even more so. It was as if the Americans had taken the best of British gunnery and ship handling and blended that with French artistry and ingenuity and created a hybrid that was far and away superior. Their ships, even the big heavy frigates like the United States and soon to be launched Constitution were heavy and yet faster in spite of it. Their fine entry and unique planking and ribbing gave the vessels a very pretty turn of speed while making their hulls almost as hard to penetrate as iron.

  Pellew had to admit to an admiration for the Americans and their shipwrights. He’d love to see them in action, of course. While the French built very good ships, they didn’t handle them particularly well. While English ships might be a bit slower, the British navy was almost constantly at sea. The officers and men learned their trade through hard won experience and few could match them in either gunnery or ship handling.

  The Americans, though, were another matter. Many of them had learned their trade in the Royal Navy as well. Some voluntarily and some not so. Further, they’d learned ship building from both the French and the British. As if this weren’t advantage enough, the burgeoning new nation had a huge continent filled with virtually unlimited resources to draw upon.

  The Americans, at least those on the long Atlantic coast, were a seafaring people. Their separation from Europe forced them into creating and depending on a large maritime fleet for trade. To top it all off, the new American Navy was entirely voluntary. There were no pressed landsmen to work up. Almost all of the men and officers in the small navy came from a lifetime of merchant service. They were thorough going seamen in every way and could handle their ships well and were rumored to be capable of serving their guns with remarkable effectiveness.

  That’s why a few minutes later when the lookout reported that he thought the larger ship was a frigate and the smaller a corvette, Pellew felt he had little to fear. If they were Americans, then there would be no fighting, since the two nations were at peace and even allied together. If they were French, then Pellew felt no concern that his heavy frigate would be unable to take on and defeat a light frigate and a corvette. It was difficult to get an exact count of their guns, let alone the weight of metal they threw, from the current distance of four miles, of course. Yet the two pursuing vessels weren’t directly astern, but coming up from further south and at a slight angle. Enough for Pellew to examine their larboard sides through his glass now.

  “I make them a thirty gun frigate and twenty gun corvette,” Pellew commented to Albury. “I’d estimate … twelve pounders for both. Perhaps a dozen carronades between them. That frigate isn’t large enough for heavier guns.”

  “I’m with you entirely, sir,” Albury replied. “In any event, their carronades don’t signify. We’ll be able to hit them hard at long range before their carronades come into play. And then we’ve got forty-two pounders to answer theirs. I wonder what they’ll do when they identify us or our firepower. We’re far out of their class. I wonder at their temerity, frankly. A pair of jackals, no more.”

  Pellew grinned, “Never underestimate your enemy, Peter. Two jackals might take down a lion, given the right set of circumstances.”

  While Albury didn’t presume to argue with his captain, his sniff of disdain revealed his inner feelings, “I estimate that they’ll be in range of our chasers in ten minutes or so.”

  “Agreed,” Pellew said. “Let us clear for action and beat to quarters, Mr. Albury.”

  With that the drum began to roll and the ship burst into action. Below, Pellew’s cabins and furniture would be vanishing with astonishing rapidity. All his possessions and the partitions that separated the space into his various apartments were being struck down into the hold. The entire gun deck, from the peak of the foc’sl to the stern windows was becoming one vast open space. A space where the gun crews could ply their twenty-six great guns unobstructed. Or as unobstructed as the framework of the ship would allow in all events.

  Already the ship’s boats were being hoisted out to be towed astern. There was a long-standing tradition among seafaring nations that combatants did not fire upon one another’s boats. A consideration both for the need to potentially save lives as well as for the officer’s furnishings that were often laid within.

  The marines appeared on the quarterdeck in their shakos and cross belts, all perfectly pipe clayed and their muskets gleaming. Captain Collins, their commander, would partition them into teams who would serve the carronades and who would take firing positions around the deck and in the mizzen, main and fore top.

  On the gun deck, the thunder of bare feet was joined by an almost musical tinking. Gun crews were selecting the roundest shot and plying chisels to remove any bits of rust and even applying a light coating of slush to ensure that each ball flew straight and true.

  Powder monkeys ran to and fro, carrying cartridge up from the hold where Mr. Atley the gunner and his mates were in the magazine filling more flannel cartridge from the stores of gunpowder barrels. Each cartridge was passed through the screens and delivered by hand to the working guns throughout an exchange. Additionally, fear naught screens were soaked with seawater and rigged over the hatches to prevent men from running and from errant sparks or flaming debris from making its way below.

  “Hoy the deck!” The lookout in the foremast cross trees shouted down. “Two strange sail to windward!”

  “What the devil?” Pellew grumbled and then, picking up a speaking trumpet from the binnacle cabinet, balled forward and aloft: “Where away!?”

  “Two points fine before the larboard beam!” The man shouted back. “Hull up now!”

  “Goddamn your eyes, Sweed!” Pellew roared. “I’ll have the hide off ya’!”

  Although his captain’s indignation was genuine, Albury had to grin to himself.
The lookout had certainly made a grievous error. He should’ve picked out those two vessels long before. Pellew, although a taut captain who demanded much from his ship and crew was not a hard horse tartar. He was a good-natured man who was fair, just and even kindly. Although Sweed would certainly suffer four his lapse, Pellew was no friend to the cat and preferred to punish with more humane methods.

  Of course, if those two ships turned out to be enemies as well and caused great damage or loss of life… Sweed would cop it something cruel. Albury wouldn’t care to answer for the man’s back in that event.

  Pellew slung his glass over his shoulder and ran forward along the larboard sail handling gangway. The yeoman of the sheets hardly had time to throw himself clear before Pellew bowled past and leapt into the fore shrouds and dashed aloft as agile as a boy. Even at forty, Pellew was a fit man who was both nimble in the rigging and a terrifying enemy to behold. With his strong build and six feet of height, Pellew could and had knocked many a Frog and Don on the head in his day. Albury had witnessed it on more than one occasion.

  Pellew scrambled up the top mast shrouds and settled himself near the masthead. He scowled at Sweed, who sat out on the top mast yardarm working at giving the impression of the utmost attentiveness. Pellew clapped the glass to his eye and ducked slightly to peer beneath the foot of the t’gallant.

  There they were indeed. A pair of vessels sailing large and angling on a course ahead of his own. They weren’t sailing at him but to intercept him at some nebulous point in the future. Pellew had to admire whomever was in charge over there. He’d certainly planned his course to come into contact with Indefatigable right about the time she’d come to grips with the two pursuing ships.

  He saw the British ensign flying on both vessels. That could simply be a ruse, of course. Yet it wasn’t a Royal Navy banner but the civilian flag.

  Interesting…

  He also took note that these vessels were no further off than the two Frenchmen astern of him. One was a brig, flying almost everything she could stand. The other was a smaller fore and aft rigged vessel. A schooner with elegant lines and a prodigious bowsprit. An American? It certainly looked like the type of clipper they were building these days.

  A British brig and an American schooner flying British colors…? No, he suddenly realized. The schooner was flying the ensign over the tricolor! That brig had taken the schooner as a prize. Probably an American built French privateer. How curious…

  “Sweed, there!” Pellew barked at the small man a few yards from him. “You keep your goddamned eyes peeled, you hear me, now? Keep me posted as to just what those vessels are doing. And if you think it wouldn’t discommode you any, be so good as to peer about at the full horizon once or twice a glass.”

  Properly chagrinned and red in the face, the twenty-ish man nodded, “Aye, aye sir… sorry, sir…”

  Pellew slid down the for tops’l mast backstay just as the topmen were coming aloft to take in the t’gallants. He made his way back to the quarterdeck, happy to see that the ship was ready for action.

  “Clean sweep fore and aft, sir,” Albury reported. “Guns loaded and primed. All crews ready. Fear naught screens and boarding netting rigged. Sail shortening down to tops’ls and courses brailed up.”

  “Very good, Mr. Albury. Not a moment too soon, neither.”

  “What do you make of the other two guests out yonder?” Albury asked, waving a hand to windward.

  “Possibly British merchant brig and a French capture,” Pellew mused. “I believe this shall be an interesting afternoon, Peter.”

  The two “American” ships were now less than a mile off. Neither one had their guns run out, however. With the exception of any bow chasers, of course. If they were truly Americans, they wouldn’t be cleared for action more likely than not. If they were French, then they’d no doubt range up close to the Indi under false colors in order to get their own chasers into range and not to suffer continuous bombardment. The heavy frigates two twenty-four pound stern chasers could do shocking damage to the lighter vessels as they clawed up to her hand over fist.

  “No such ships on our American list,” Albury confirmed.

  Pellew grunted, “Not surprised. However, that list is at least a month old, if not more… Make the United States recognition signal.”

  A series of hoists soared up the signal halyards. At first, it appeared as if the pursuers would answer. Signals flew up their halyards and then jammed halfway. They came down and then up again. A common ruse and one that Pellew wasn’t falling for.

  “Master gunner!” he called to Mr. Atley, who was now standing at the larboard chaser and glaring at the two ships astern. “Put a ball across each of their bows, if you please. Mr. Curtis, signal heave to and prepare to send a boat.”

  Once again, flags broke out at Indefaticable’s mizzen peek. Once again, they were ignored or unheeded.

  “Very well… they’ve asked for it, let them have it, Mr. Atley,” Pellew said patiently.

  Atley pointed both guns, training them round and adjusting the quoins just so. He stepped back from the starboard chaser and jerked the lanyard.

  The pieces flint lock came down and the big gun roared out, leaping backward between its six man crew to be checked by the breeching ropes. Atley moved quickly to the larboard piece, double checked it and fired that one as well.

  Pellew watched for the fall of the shots. The first landed in a true line only twenty yards before the frigate’s bow. The second went just high enough not to strike the corvette’s forestay.

  “That’s clapped a stopper over their capers, sir!” Atley exalted.

  He was right. Aboard both ships, the Stars and Stripes descended and the tricolor flashed out. Almost simultaneously, the bow chasers of both ships barked out, a puff of smoke from each of their larboard bows proceeding the distant pop. The balls pitched into the sea fifty yards astern of the British frigate, sending up plumes of seawater as they did so.

  “I believe the waiting is over, gentlemen,” Pellew said with a grin and a piratical gleam in his eyes. “Let’s show these frog eaters what a real gun crew can do, eh?”

  A cheer went up on the quarterdeck and flowed forward, filling the ship. The time for action had arrived, and nothing thrilled a true British tar like serving out a Frenchman.

  “I really must protest, Miss Cook! This is taking matters beyond all proportion!”

  Once again, Mr. Bentley was on her quarterdeck and raging at her with a complete lack of any semblance of propriety. The reasoning part of her mind could understand his position, yet that part of her wholly taken up by preparing for the upcoming action, of handling her ship, had no patience for it.

  “There’s such a thing as being too eager! Too eager by half, indeed!” He ranted.

  “Mr. Bentley!” She railed back at him, “I will not tell you again, sir! You refer to me as captain while you’re in this ship or by God I will have you clapped in irons and stuffed into the fore peak!”

  He seemed unbowed by her own anger and continued with his tirade, “You have a duty to the passengers of this ship, Captain, or have you forgotten that? Is your lust for glory so great that you haven’t a thought to spare for us?”

  Palander, Wade and even Danvers, who’d come aft to take his place beside her until the action began all stared forward with stoney expressions and blank looks. Kate’s own face was a mask of barely contained anger.

  “You and your people have my permission to take shelter below the waterline in the hold,” Kate said tersely. “If that isn’t sufficient, you may man the cutter and lay off until the conclusion of hostilities or attempt to make your own way into Charleston.”

  Bentley spluttered in indignation as he tried to formulate a proper response. Kate didn’t allow him much time.

  “Those are your only two options, sir,” She growled. “Since I may presume you and your fellow passengers don’t intend to render any actual assistance in this conflict? As you haven’t in either of the previous conf
licts?”

  “We’re civilians!” he stammered in fury.

  She glared, contempt in her voice as she said: “Yes, and you don’t want to dirty your pretty hands by helping out a King’s ship that may be in peril. Leave the dirty work to others while you cower behind the shelter they provide.”

  “How dare you!” He practically wheezed. “You jumped up little—“

  “Get below!” Kate roared in his face. “Danvers, there! Escort Bentley here below. See to it he and his wife and any other passengers are made as comfortable as possible below. And mind they don’t show their faces on deck without they take up a weapon and earn their keep!”

  Kate paced the weather side of the deck for several minutes and seethed. Her brig and schooner were only minutes from a pitched battle and all the grumpy old sod could think about was his purse and his personal comforts.

  Part of her mind did consider of what Bentley had said. The truth was that the Whitby Castle was not a ship of war. Nor was the Sword of vengeance. The schooner was a letter of mark. Equipped and designed to dash out and snap up easy prizes. Her pitiful ten six pounders were only meant to frighten small and poorly defended merchantmen into striking with as little damage as possible. The brig herself was a small and poorly defended merchantman. While she did possess a respectable number of guns for her size and duty, she could but boast a broadside weight of metal of just under eighty pounds. This was less than what was now clearly the smallest of the three ships to looward, a French corvette of twenty guns. Even if that ship had only twelve pounders, she would throw a broadside half again as powerful as the brig’s.

  Then there was the larger French frigate. Probably what was now known as a Jackass frigate. A twenty-eight or thirty gun ship mounting twelve pounders. A Sixth rate at best but still delivering a broadside of something like two hundred and fifty pounds of iron when her carronades were taken into account.

  Then there was the British frigate, which Sankey had identified as the Indefatigable. That ship could throw a full broadside more than twice that of the French frigate. With that in mind, was Kate rushing in pell-mell for no good reason? It was entirely possible that the heavy frigate would make short work of the French.