“Get ready to fight, of course,” Lt. Jules Hainaut responded.
“Mon Dieu, merde alors,” the petty officer almost whimpered, “but with what, m’sieur?” He waved a hand at L’Impudente’s open deck and low bulwarks, where nested a pitiful set of six 4-pounder pop-guns, the shot racks beside them holding a skimpy allotment of balls. There were iron stanchions set into the railings for swivel-guns, mere 1-pounders or 2-pounders, so light that a single man could heave them up from below—empty, at the moment, as bare as a whore’s arse.
“With what we have, marinier,” Hainaut chuckled back. “Honour demands it. Are the swivels below? Not rusted in a heap?”
“Oui…some,” the petty officer shrugged in reply.
“Shot and cartridge bags?”
“Uhm…oui, aussi. But…”
“Then fetch them up, at least four of them, if we indeed have four,” Hainaut patiently ordered, “and place them two to each beam for now. I might wish all four on one side, later, depending. Load them, then man the deck-guns.”
The petty officer’s jaw dropped; he almost dared to roll eyes in derision—did roll them, as he swung an arm at the fifteen men in the crew.
“Officeur, uhm…” Hainaut more sternly said.
“Gaston, m’sieur,” the burly man supplied.
“You have met my master, Capitaine Choundas. What do you think he would do with the Frenchmen who shied away from battle? How angry do you think that he already is? After this, he’ll be looking for any one or any thing on which to work off his wrath.”
“Eu, merde!” the petty officer gasped, paling quickly. “Oui, I see your point, m’sieur Lieutenant. To arms mes amis, to arms! Fetch up the swivel-guns, vite, vite!”
Hainaut held his amusement in check as he watched his “crewmen” scurrying to cast off the bowsings and lashings on the deck-guns, scuttling below to fetch up swivels and powder charges, gun-tools, and more shot.
L’Impudente still stood outward on starboard tack, with the wind a bit before her beam, and with the British frigate bearing down on her like Nemesis, Hainaut thought of a sudden, recalling a scrap of classic lore that Capt. Choundas had crammed into his head whether he liked it or not. His schooner would pass out to sea a good mile before the enemy’s course and his could intersect, and L’Impudente could be well out of her starboard battery’s certain range. The frigate might try her eye on him, but it would be random and poorly directed, with low odds of a hit. He would be as safe as a babe in its mother’s arms.
No, it was the appearance of bellicosity that was needed here, he smugly told himself. Once the frigate was off his own stern, as he held this course, he would tack L’Impudente and come about to tail her.
A few pin-prick irritations up her stern, enough to be seen and remembered by others—such hopeless bravery against such horrid odds!—and his master Capitaine Choundas could no longer deny such a plucky fellow a ship of his own, could he? Even better, Lt. Hainaut fantasised, it didn’t look as if today would be a good day for the doughty Capitaine Desplan; his dashing frigate was going to be pummeled unless she got under way a lot faster, and she would barely have time to settle on a course and get her people to their battle stations before the foe was on her.
Poor, poor Navy, Hainaut more-soberly contemplated; always the butt of the joke. Not like the tales I heard, coming up, in the Royal French fleet. Not like how equal the challenge we could make, during the last war. Now…the Republic needs dashing, plucky captains to take on the Bloodies. Captains like…moi!
And if his master was slain in the battle to come (or crippled even more, to the point that he could no longer function), well, what a pity, quel dommage. If Le Bouclier lost a lieutenant or two, resulting in a shuffle from the corvettes to staff her, leaving vacancies on the other warships, his chances for advancement would be just as good.
“What is that British toast I heard?” he muttered to himself as he manned the tiller-bar alone. “Ah! ‘Here’s to a bloody war, or a sickly season!’”
Chapter Twelve
“Pot this’un, too, sir?” Lt. Langlie asked as a saucy schooner hared off to leeward below their bows, about half a mile off.
Lewrie balefully looked at the potential prey, then forrud one more time, juggling speed and time. Three minutes more, he reckoned, and Proteus would just about be in close range of the French frigate. His gun crews had both batteries loaded and already run out ready for firing, ready…prepared in their minds, as well. To dash over to the starboard side, lever, shift, and take aim at the schooner that was opening the range rapidly, then take time to swab out, charge, reload, and run out, then dash back to larboard and just get their breath back before engaging a real foe…no, it’d only unsettle them. At that moment, they were oak-steady, whilst his view through his glass showed a French crew still at sixes and sevens; all atwitter and thinking dire, fretful thoughts, he hoped.
“Don’t think so, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie decided. “A waste of shot and powder. Mister Larkin?” he called to his seediest midshipman.
“Aye, sor?” the little Bog-Irish crisply replied in his “Paddy” accent, lifting his right hand to knuckle his hat.
“Keep a weather-eye on yon schooner, and sing out if she comes back on the wind,” Lewrie ordered.
“Aye, Oi…I will, sor, Sir,” Larkin amended, blushing.
“Very good, Mister Larkin. Now, gentlemen, let’s be about it.” Lewrie said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “I think we will take a page from their book of tactics this morning, gentlemen. Mister Catterall? Your first broadside from the larboard battery will be on the up-roll…quoins out. Take her masts and rigging down, at about two cables’ range. Second broadside, you will fire on the pent of the scend, double-shotted, ’twixt wind and water, and hull her from then on.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
No matter how sternly a British warship was disciplined, and no matter how cool-headed her people were to act when at Quarters, during a battle between ships, the men could not help but snicker, grin, and nudge each other, were they about to serve their foes something novel, something clever and unexpected, and this time was no exception. Alan Lewrie could almost grin in expectation, too, thinking about bar-shot, chain-shot, and bags of grape-shot waiting in the hard iron barrels of his guns. A few hands took time to look back at him as he stood over them at the break of the quarterdeck, beaming with pleasure at his sly-boots knackiness. Ship’s boy-servants crouched round the companionway hatches and on the ladders that led below with leather cartridge cases ready for the second broadside; gun-captains had already selected their roundest, truest 12-pounder shot—two per barrel for a second double-shotted broadside—the best from the garlands, without filed-away rust patches, the tiny dimples and slices that would have been ignored, or hidden in the rush of battle by an extra glob of blacking, but that would send them caroming off-aim when loosed.
“Brail up the main course, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said, with an upward glance. “Wind’s freshening. We still ‘cut a fine feather’ without it.” The last cast of the log had shown nigh ten knots, and steering Sou’east with the Trades fine on the larboard quarter, their frigate would still keep a goodly speed, perhaps a whole eight knots. Proteus was aroar with the slick bustle of her passage, her bow waves twin, creaming “mustachioes” that hissed-sang down her flanks. “Four cables, now, do you judge it, Mister Winwood?”
“Under four, sir,” the Sailing Master responded, after a ponder and a squint or two. “Nearing three.”
“Three…seven hundred and twenty yards, hmmm. Ready to come to Due South, Mister Langlie, when I call. Two cables is our boy.”
Lewrie lifted his glass for a final look at their foe. Topmen were sliding down from aloft, her fighting-tops were still being manned, but her scurrying crew was now mostly out of sight behind or below her bulwarks, slaving away at her starboard guns, most-likely. There! He saw the frigate’s gun-ports begin to hinge upward; the muzzles of her great-guns here and there
started to emerge in jerks and twitches.
They aimin’ high? Lewrie asked himself. That’s their usual wont, t’cripple first. Usually do it much sooner, were they ready to fight. Take our masts down, then close. But we’re already closed, ain’t we?
“Two and a half, Captain,” Mr. Winwood said, tenser and edgier.
“Take aim, Mister Catterall!” Lewrie barked. “Take careful aim. No rushing, men. Be sure of your shots, with nothing wasted. By God, just ’cause you wish t’hear some more loud bangs, this lovely mornin’! Slack in those trigger lines, now. Easy…!”
“Wait for it!” Lt. Catterall was wailing, sword held high, and almost on his tip-toes in expectation.
“Two, sir,” the experienced Winwood adjudged, at last.
“By broadside…on the up-roll…fire!” Lewrie bellowed.
Over Proteus rolled, with her sails straining wind-full from astern, slowly and majestically, larboard side dipping then rising up, to linger for a breath or two, pent atop the gentle scend of inshore waters. “Fire!” Lt. Catterall howled, slashing down dramatically to the deck, almost bowed from the waist.
“Helm up a point, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie shouted in the roar as all her guns went off together. “Due South, again!”
“Aye-aye, sir!” Langlie cried back, his voice lost in the din.
The larboard horizon disappeared in a sudden cumulus of powder smoke that the wind shoved back in their faces, keeping pace with them as Proteus bowled onwards, but slowly thinning to reveal…
“Damn my eyes, just lovely shootin’!” Lewrie crowed eagerly by the larboard bulwark. “Choke on that, you snail-eatin’ bastards!” he said in a chortle that didn’t carry too far, filled with an impatient, leg-jiggly boy’s elation, as if ready to titter or giggle with the joy of a Christmas Eve’s anticipation.
The French frigate’s upper masts and sails had been riddled and shattered. Her main top-masts over the fighting-top had been sheered away completely, hanging to windward. Her mizen tops’l had split open and the sail-less cro’jack yard sagged in two, in a downward vee. Her spanker had been shot free of its sheets and was winged out so far that Lewrie was seeing it edge-on of its leach. Ladder-like shrouds showed gaps where star-shot or chain-shot had scissored them above and below the fighting-top platforms, which had been swept clean of sharpshooters and swivel-guns. Her fore top-masts swayed forward ten degrees out of true, her mizen top-masts were slowly whip-sawing at each long roll.
“By broadside…fire!” Lt. Catterall shrieked as the frigates fell together at an angle, gun-drunk and lost in battle lust.
The French reply broadside, rushed and disorganised, was ragged. Heavy round-shot howled past in satanic moans and keens. Amid the gun-smoke, tall white feathers of spray leaped skyward as some balls struck short and caromed upwards over the deck, missing bulwarks and attacking Proteus in her rigging by accident, unintentionally cracking upon masts or spars, or pillow-thumping through rigidly wind-arced sails.
Even so, there were a few parrot-squawks, the quick rrawrks! of shot striking home “’twixt wind and water,” along with the yelps and shrieks of alarm or sudden pain and disbelief as sailors and Marines were showered with iron shards or flying splinters, some as long as a man’s forearm and half as thick!
“Well, I’m damned!” Lt. Langlie cried, wiping his face, looking outward as the gun-smoke thinned once more. “Sir! ’Less she bears up abeam the wind, we’ll bow-rake her!”
The French frigate had already taken a fearful drubbing at that second broadside. Great shot-holes along her line of mid-ships ports had turned several into one long, bloody gash. Below her gunn’ls and gun-deck her glossy black hull had been punctured, leaving star-shaped holes and ragged plank ends, with one smallish one right on the waterline. And, music to Lewrie’s battered ears, the Nor’east Trades bore sounds of fright, suffering, and consternation as the enemy frigate’s way fell off from the loss of so much sail, and her attempt to swing abeam to them by brute helm force. She could not turn quick, though, could not protect her vitals from a bow-rake!
“As you bear…fire!”
Amid squeals of agony, many tortured rrawrks! of rivened wood, and the pistol-pop of stays, they bowled shot down her entire length through her flimsier bow planking. Her foremast tumbled into ruin and her mizen top-masts swayed, pivoted, then plummeted down, taking the broken cro’jack yard, fighting-top, and spanker gaff with it, burying her quarterdeck in a blizzard of trash!
“Cease fire, Mister Catterall!” Lewrie shouted, going forward. “I think the Frogs’ve had their fill of us for a good long while, hey, lads? Think we’ve left a calling-card they’ll remember next time?”
Then, more softly to Mr. Langlie, “Take us dead off the winds, sir. Seaward, and alee of the Saintes, yonder. Stand ready to wear her onto starboard tack, the wind fine on the quarter, should it be necessary. Let fall the main course and sheet home, too. We’ve done a good morning’s work.”
“We’ll not stay to take her, sir?” Langlie just had to wonder.
“And risk them getting even a little of their own back, Mister Langlie? I think not. Far as they know, we didn’t lose a single man, and sank or crippled three vessels in an hour. Let ’em think on that and be daunted,” Lewrie said with a smug sniff. “Damme! What in the hell…?”
Light shot had moaned overhead, smacking through the mizen tops’l and t’gallant.
“That schooner, sor, he’s up our stern, sor!” Mr. Larkin said, so close that Lewrie almost tripped over him.
“Hands to the braces, Mister Langlie. Mister Catterall, you will man the starboard battery, once we wear about!” Lewrie snapped. “And why didn’t you alert me, Mister Larkin, when I—”
“Couldn’t make ye hear me, sor! All but tugged at yer coat, Oi did, but niver th’…” Larkin spluttered in sudden fear.
“Oh,” Lewrie grunted, knowing how remiss he’d been. “Thankee, Mister Larkin. My pardons, but I do that sometimes. Tug away, next time, if you must. It saves our ship and our people’s lives, I’ll not chide you for it.”
“She’ll most-like duck away, cross our stern once we’ve altered course, sir,” Mr. Winwood sourly supposed.
“Perhaps we’ll get lucky and wing her, first,” Lewrie replied. “Either way, we force her to cut and run. Then we’ll sail away to the Nor’west and out of reach of her puny broadsides. Like she’s not worth our attention.” Lewrie paced aft to stand by the taff-rail and lifted his telescope, then snorted in disgust.
“Will you look at this?” he scoffed. “She’s firing at half a mile, perhaps a tad more…with four-pounders, I expect,” he guessed as he gauged the keen of a ball passing to larboard, well clear of any hope of striking.
“Ready to come about, sir,” Langlie reported. “Larboard guns secured, and the starboard battery manned.”
Lewrie watched the schooner haring up their wake, swaying back on course after yawing to open her gun-arcs for her last “broadside.” Did Proteus come about, she’d rapidly lose speed, whilst the schooner kept lashing along, reducing the range to a quarter-mile, hopefully too quickly for that schooner captain to appreciate his danger. One good broadside from his 12-pounders should put the wind up him!
“Very well, Mister Langlie. New course, Nor-Nor’west, full and by. Mister Larkin, run tell Lieutenant Catterall we’ll be hard on the wind, and he’s to put the quoins full-in before he fires.”
“Aye, sor…sir!” the little imp happily cried before dashing forward, glad to have escaped his captain’s wrath and to be “back in his good books.”
“Oh, dear,” the Sailing Master muttered as they watched the wee foeman begin to swing, as Proteus, too, began to heel over and change course, “but the poor fellow just chose the wrong tack to take, sir.”
“Let’s hope we make his life a little more exciting, the next few moments, sir,” Lewrie snickered.
“Stand by!” they could hear Lt. Catterall shouting faintly, half his volume stolen by the rush of the wind. “O
n the down-roll…”
“Eu, merde!” petty officer Gaston muttered once again, wincing into his thin coat as the British frigate’s gun-ports opened.
“Fire!” Lt. Hainaut shouted urgently. “Fire now, then get on the sheets and we’ll wear about…quickly!”
His larboard 4-pounders fired, smouldering lin-stocks put to the touch-holes of the old-fashioned guns without even an attempt to lay or aim them. Crisp, terrier-like bangs rapped out, then a sharp double bang as the swivel-guns made their contribution. Even pointing upwards at forty-five degrees, their loads of scrap-iron and pistol balls would more likely come back down like a sudden rain squall not a third of the way to the anglais warship—which fired back!
Moans, keens, and shrieks of deadly, hurtling metal ran up the musical scale as they neared, some passing close enough to bludgeon men half off their feet with the wind of their passing, one smashing close-aboard, not twenty new-fangled meters from the larboard side, a monster column of water leaping skyward as high as the foremast truck, to come pelting down like the rains of a tropic hurricane, wetting everything and everyone in an instant, smothering the wind from the fore-and-aft gaff sails and jibs, knocking Hainaut’s elegant cocked hat off into the filthy scuppers, and drenching his best uniform and his carefully combed coif, ’til he looked, and felt, like a half-drowned wharf rat.
“We will tack!” he cried. “Hands to the sheets. Ready to come about?” Yes, they were more than ready, by the look of it. “Helm is…alee!” he shouted, putting his whole weight on the tiller bar.
Away L’Impudente danced, force back in her sails and agile again, showing her stern to the “Bloodies’” next broadside, then swinging past the eye of the wind to run just a dab South of Due East, making herself a very small, thin target…incidentally.
“Now, we will haul our wind and show her our starboard sides,” Hainaut screeched at his shaken crew. “We will fire one last set of shots from the starboard guns, then go back on the wind. I promise.” He had to add that; the first part of his orders had them looking outright mutinous! “Just one more, for the honour of our glorious flag, mes amis! To show les anglais we will never be daunted!” Hainaut didn’t care if shot was rammed home or not; the bangs and the powder smoke would suffice for a show of defiance. For a show.
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