Havoc's Sword

by Dewey Lambdin

  Now, had he a full crew and the weight of metal to match against the upstart Americans, if not that British frigate, then who knew what he could have accomplished, if only…

  “Oh, if only,” he whispered, beginning to rehearse, and script, how he would wring his hands in anguish once he stepped ashore. Jules Hainaut stood looking outboard, puffing on his cigaro, secretly savouring the richness of South American tobaccos, but trying on the opening “scene” and facial expressions to evince frustration and bitter sadness for his first small “audience,” his own prize crew.

  Yes, some good could come of this disaster, after all; good for him all round, had he the wit and panache with which to play it, Jules Hainaut smugly thought.

  “Allô!” the mainmast lookout shrilled to the deck again.

  “What?” Hainaut barked back in instant irritation, with a scowl on his face; he quickly amended his tone of voice and expression to one more suitable and…tragically heroic. “Our friends have a chance?”

  “The anglais frigate, Lieutenant…I see her before. She is that Proteus! That ‘Bloody’ Devil!”

  “Ah, mon Dieu,” Hainaut gawped in true shock, a sinking feeling in his innards. “Then they are truly lost, quel dommage. Merci,” he had wit to shout to the lookout.

  “A great pity, indeed, m’sieur Lieutenant,” the petty officer said, shaking his head in fearful awe. “How can that salaud be everywhere, as if he reads our minds, as if…?”

  “Perhaps he does, Timmonier,” Hainaut suddenly responded, with a suspicious frown—then a wry and rueful grimace of understanding. “Perhaps this was not mere bad luck, but…betrayal! We must get word back to Guadeloupe that this devil ship and that cochon Lewrie have struck again, as if by a miraculous coincidence. No, this cannot be credited. He must have been told our every move by a traitor.”

  Poor Pelletier, and poor Digne, Hainaut thought, scowling over this chilling explanation for all their troubles of late. It is all up with them. Pelletier must have had the shortest captaincy in history, and Digne in his borrowed lieutenant’s coat…he’ll still owe a tailor for the uniform he ordered, if he survives British captivity.

  Quel dommage…I never liked them, anyway.

  “We’ve the angle on them, by God, sir!” Lt. Catterall exulted as they watched the sails of the French ships, the slivers of hulls on the horizon, heave up high enough to be seen with a glass. “Sharp eyes, the Oglethorpe had aloft, t’spot ’em so quick on the false dawn.”

  “Sharp eyes, indeed, sir,” Captain Lewrie agreed, “we’ll be up with them in another half hour. Do you concur, Mister Winwood?”

  “Uhm…the Oglethorpe, in a half hour, Captain. Proteus, not a quarter-hour later, I’d estimate,” the Sailing Master answered after a long ponder, in his usually mournful “mooing” cautiousness.

  “Then we’ll take at least one prize, thanks be to God,” Lewrie chuckled, “unless Sumter overtakes us.”

  “Can’t share out equally, though, sir,” Lt. Langlie speculated. “All three ships will be ‘in sight’ at the time of capture, but we’ve no formal alliance with the Americans which allows for sharing. And there is the strong possibility that those French prizes yonder are the missing American merchantmen they reported, so…might not Captains McGilliveray and Randolph demand that we return the re-taken ships to their custody, Captain?”

  “Damn my eyes, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said, turning on him, in mock anger, “but you’ve a quibblesome bent before your breakfast, or your coffee. Do I ask my man Aspinall to fetch us all a pot, will you let me keep just one?”

  “Well, sir, I hardly…” the well-knit young man began to…quibble, but stopped, red-faced among his fellow officers’ mirth.

  “I know there’s no profit for us this morning, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie went on, awarding him a wider grin, “and indeed I shall return what American ships are possibly re-taken to our…cousins. Is there any actual profit in our gesture, perhaps it’ll come later, in a real alliance ’twixt our countries against the Frogs, d’ye see, sir. Best all round, really, if we don’t even take public credit for assisting the Yankees. But their President Adams, their naval Secretary, and their Congress will learn of it, eventually. As will Admiralty, and the Crown. Secret gratitude from the Americans, and tacit approval by His Majesty’s Government may be all we may expect.”

  “Yet the mightiest oaks, from little acorns grow, do they not, sir,” Lt. Adair, his always-clever Scots Third Officer slyly drawled.

  “They do, indeed, Mister Adair,” Lewrie said with a glad nod.

  Those French ships would have been so easy to miss in the grey murk of predawn, but for a very sharp-eyed lookout on USS Oglethorpe, in truth. Proteus had been half an hour into the Morning Watch, with her people’s and her officers’ attention engaged mostly in-board, half-past 4:00 A.M. and the summons for “All Hands” that began a ship’s day.

  And it had been then that a sharp-eyed lookout of their own had spotted Oglethorpe, at the very edge of vision ten miles aloof, up to windward at the tip of their patrol line and pencil-sketched in black against the East’rd sky. He had discerned the tiny square blocks of a signal hoist in the space ’twixt her main and mizen masts, and her new course as she foreshortened, turning more Sou’easterly to investigate something. Almost as easy to miss, had Proteus’s lookout blinked, was a tiny ruddy ember that winked into a brief life when she fired off a starboard, lee, bow-chaser to draw their attention.

  Without being able to read the signal hoist, but realising that Oglethorpe was attempting to convey something of importance to them, Lt. Catterall, who normally stood the Morning Watch, had sent word aft to his captain, who had ordered their course altered to close the American brig o’ war, hoist a signal to alert Sumter off to their lee down West by at least another ten miles, and fire off a starboard chase gun of their own, and the “hunt” was on.

  Lewrie had Aspinall come to the quarterdeck and arranged for a pot of black coffee, then paced off alone to the windward side, with a telescope in hand. Steeling himself for the ordeal, and flexing his left arm to test its strength after his wound received at Camperdown, which had resulted in the tiniest bit of weakness, he clambered aloft for a look of his own—up onto a quarterdeck carronade slide mount to the bulwarks, into the mizen stays and rat-lines, up the tar-tacky and bedewed shrouds as far as the cross-bracing taut stays below the top. With a groan of rusty practice, knowing he needed a higher vantage, he cautiously threaded his body ’tween the cat-harpings, then transferred over to futtock shrouds and clambered up them until his bare head was butted against the bottom of the top platform…inside the futtock shrouds, not taking the more perilous “outside passage” that required dangling from death-grips of his hands and feet like a spider hanging from its disturbed web ’til one reached the lip of the top and the maze of dead-eye blocks, to haul oneself up and over like a housebreaker breasting a brick curtain wall.

  Should do this more often, he chid himself, and his well-known idleness; I’m goin’ all…potty, and short o’ breath. Damme if I’ll end up like other captains…all tripes an’ trullibubs!

  Knowing himself, though, perhaps too well by then, such a vow he suspected would be quite forgotten by the start of the Forenoon.

  Once he got his breath back to normal, and his glass unslung, he could see that Catterall was right; they did indeed have the angle on them.

  The suspect horde of ships had been discovered down to the Sou’east, first of all, and USS Oglethorpe had made a sharp turn Easterly to stand as close to the Nor’east Trades as she could bear to place herself before the bows of the vessels she had espied flogging roughly to the North on the opposing starboard tack, and as close to the winds as they could steer, as well. Proteus had followed quickly and was now roughly astern of Oglethorpe, on the same point of sail and course. A quick look astern showed him USS Sumter just a bit Sutherly of their own creaming wake, to stay in undisturbed water so her hull could slice cleaner and swifter, about eight miles or so
astern but gaining rapidly. It appeared that Capt. McGilliveray had not been boasting about Sumter’s speediness.

  And Proteus, well…she was no slow-coach this morning, either, Lewrie was proud to note, thanks to her careening and hull scraping a scant three months earlier at Kingston. She would gain on Randolph’s Oglethorpe just as Sumter would gain on her, ’til there might not be three miles between them when they engaged.

  Now that the predawn grew lighter, Lewrie could make out that there were three gaggles of ships roughly three points off their starboard bows. The closest group was all square-riggers, slower and less weatherly when trying to make progress beating to windward. A little farther off and ahead of the square-riggers was a second gaggle, and they were all fore-and-aft-rigged schooners, able to point higher and out-foot their confederates. Strive as they might, though, they were just a bit too far down to the Sou’east and not fast enough to get up to windward and make it a long stern chase before the Oglethorpe interposed herself cross their hawses.

  And there was a final brace of schooners then almost dead ahead of the Yankee brig o’ war, also close-hauled on starboard tack. Those they’d not catch, Lewrie grumpily decided. Once a quarter-mile aloof of Oglethorpe, they’d stride off like Arabian three-year-olds at the Derby races and require a day and a night to overhaul.

  The nearest group didn’t have a chance in Hell, Lewrie assessed. Stand on, tack, and come about to larboard tack to steer Easterly, or haul their wind and scud back the way they’d come; either choice, they’d be too slow to escape their pursuers past noon.

  The trio of schooners would be the handiest and quickest. Did they tack and run, there was a good chance that the chase could require the whole day and some of the next. But for the fact that East of ’em lay Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the maze of isles and cays, and coral reefs, which lay between St. Vincent and Grenada; all of which were either garrisoned, occupied, or patrolled by Royal Navy vessels, not ninety miles to windward of where they stood that instant. It would be a case of “out of the frying pan, into the fire” for them, did they choose that course.

  “Oh, you are so gloriously…fucked,” Lewrie gleefully whispered to himself as he closed the tubes of his telescope. “The longer you stay blind to us, down here in the dark, the worse it’ll be, too.”

  He re-slung his glass, squirmed about to grasp firm hand-holds and toe-holds, and descended the inner face of the futtocks, threaded back through the cat-harpings, turned about, and made his way back to the bulwarks, where he could hop atop the carronade slide, then step onto safe and sure footing on his own quarterdeck once more, scented and smutted with fresh tar and “slush,” the rancid, suety skimmings of the steep-tubs from boiled salt-meats, that kept the rigging supple and rain-proof.

  By God, ye can’t stay clean aboard ship! he ruefully told himself as he swiped his tacky hands on the seat of his slop-trousers: Go through damn’ near a quarter o’ my pay with the Purser, just t’stay presentable. Just look at Mister Coote, the greedy bastard…takin’ my measure for fresh-issue slops, already. Gimlet-eyed ‘Nip-Cheese’!

  “Can’t understand why they haven’t spotted us yet,” he said to his officers. “Not that it’d do ’em much good if they did. We’ll bag all but the two dead ahead of us, one way or t’other. Ah, Aspinall!”

  “Coffee f’r all, sir. No cream’r sugar, sorry t’say,” his man said, passing out tin mugs dangled off a hank of twine, and holding a large black iron-lidded pot with the aid of a dish-clout.

  “Your pardons, Captain Lewrie,” their Purser, Mr. Coote, asked. “But I was wondering, should we serve a cold meal of cheese, biscuit, and small-beer, or do you think we might have time to boil up burgoo?”

  “Cold victuals, sorry t’say, Mister Coote,” Lewrie told their much put-upon older, and straight-laced Purser. “Do the French spin out a long stern chase, though, I’d admire did the people be served a hot dinner to atone for it.”

  “Very good, sir,” Coote agreed, with a small bow. “Oh my, sir. Do you wish, I’ve a new bale of slop-trousers, come aboard at Antigua. I’ll root out a pair or two in your size, should I, Captain?”

  Mr. Coote could not fathom why Lewrie chuckled and shook his head in secret amusement before giving his assent.

  “Just enough f’r one mug, sir, sorry,” Aspinall said as Lewrie was served last, per his standing instructions. “Galley’s stanched.”

  “Barely time enough for the one, Aspinall,” Lewrie said as he accepted the searing-hot thin tin mug. “And then it’ll be Frogs àla fricasée for breakfast. We’ll relight the galley fires and grill ’em to a turn.”

  “Hear, hear!” his assembled officers and warrants rumbled.

  For at least another quarter-hour, the ad hoc squadron swooped onward as the gloom of predawn gradually lightened, without the French taking any notice of them, lost in the leeward darkness. Lewrie felt sure that their straining t’gallants and royals, then the tops’ls, must be spotted as the bowl of sunrise spilled over and expanded, illuminating their upper canvas, almost turning them as bright as so many mirrors. Weary tan sailcloth would first appear as white as new-fallen snow, practically shouting “Here We Are!” then glow as hot as a well-stoked fireplace when the rising sun coated them shimmery gilded. But they were almost hull-up to the nearest pack, the square-riggers hull-up to them, before the French reacted.

  The Sumter had caught up within two miles of Proteus by then and began to veer away, a little more off the wind on a direct course for the square-rigged ships and brigs. One mile ahead, Oglethorpe was within minutes of crossing the bows of the fore-and-aft-rigged group.

  Lewrie, now turned out in proper uniform, including sword belt, paced the quarterdeck, waiting for the inevitable escape manoeuvres on the part of the French. They had to tack or wear; run Sou’east after tacking, or run South or Sou’west after wearing about.

  Lewrie had also decided to allow the Yankees the principal role in the endeavour; unless they ran into trouble, he would keep Proteus between Oglethorpe and Sumter, like a flagship directing the activities of subordinate ships. Those two schooners, up to windward by now and safe as houses…He turned to look in their direction, lifting his telescope. Yes, they were at least five miles upwind, in the Nor’east, and sure to escape and carry word of this encounter to Guadeloupe, if they didn’t run afoul of other British warships. And that was simply fine, to Lewrie’s lights.

  Except for one short fight off their own coast that had netted them a French privateer, the Yankees hadn’t scored any successes, yet, and were more than due one. Reclaiming their missing merchant vessels and fighting a brace of French privateers or National ships would embolden their whole nation. That a British frigate had been a supporting partner might result in an even closer cooperation in future, even a formal alliance.

  He couldn’t take the lead role, though. The Americans’ stubborn “younger brother” pride, and mistrust of their former enemy, would never allow him to play the old salt and senior officer on the scene. Had he tried, they’d have damned his blood and swanned off on their truculent own, Lewrie strongly suspected.

  Yet…his standing off a bit, appearing in command of Yankee subordinates, would dovetail with French suspicions to a tee, he could speculate. The French espoused a lingering liking for the Jonathons. They had eagerly bankrupted themselves to support the Revolution, sent troops and fleets to aid them, and had embraced everything rustic, plain, and Yankee Doodle (including that damned song that had driven him half-daft, when he had been surrounded at Yorktown!) along with doddering old Benjamin Franklin and his ratty raccoon caps, as paragons of simple, plebeian Virtue—which had also dovetailed quite nicely with their reigning philosophers, like that Rousseau fellow with all his cant about Noble Savages, the Common Man, and Common Sense. The French had fallen in love with that wild-eyed radical Thomas Paine, and his rantings on Republicanism and Democracy. So much so that a few years later, they had staged a Revolution of their own; one they’d mucked u
p, o’ course…being French, and all.

  In the beginning of the French Revolution, it had been American grains, delivered in whole armadas of neutral ships, that kept them from wholesale famine.

  No, no matter their unofficial “war” against American traders, the French still partways admired them. Of course, being French, the Americans were probably seen as child-like, raw bumpkins when compared to the superiority of French society. Weak, rude and rustic in their manners, overly prudish and Puritan in their mores, so unrealistic as to expect honesty, fair dealing, and prim rectitude from themselves and others…so hopelessly naïve, so un-worldly!

  Hugues, Choundas, and the Directory in Paris when word of this reached them, could never suspect the Americans of being realistic enough to make alliance with Great Britain; too weak on land and sea to take the lead. Too enamoured of, too awed by, the innate glory of La Belle France to…dare! Those hideous English, however, were just the sort of scheming, cynical master manipulators who could gull the ingenuous Americans into folly, could tempt them from the eternal gratitude the United States owed France!

  Oh, how they’d curse, stamp their elegantly shod little feet! Lewrie happily thought. How the Frogs would feel betrayed…and feel fear! Fear enough to sulk for a time (as the French were wont to do) then declare war against the United States, piqued by such betrayal?

  Here in local waters, Hugues and Choundas would be piqued, for certain, to have lost a brace of raiders, lost a flotilla of prizes; perhaps gained a new foe. It would be months before packets could carry word back and forth from Guadeloupe to France with news or instructions, and in the meantime they would operate as if befogged. They’d keep their main attention on British operations, but would be forced to keep glancing over their shoulders lest the United States launch a real war, perhaps assemble a hasty fleet to eliminate Guadeloupe as a privateering base, once and for all, by themselves, or in league with the odious English!