Lewrie took himself a long look-see, too, feeling oddly calm, and satisfied. Proteus still lay Nor’east of the French, only slowly angling closer to them as the escorting warships swanned about to get ready to fight. They were separated by little more than two miles of water, now, tantalisingly beyond even extreme gun-range. The leading French corvette was bound Nor’west, as close-hauled to the Trades as she could bear. The second corvette was still about a mile astern of the first one, perhaps a quarter-mile alee of her consort, and unable to pinch or claw up closer. The armed schooner showed much more dash, though; her fore-and-aft sails allowed her another point higher on the eyes of the wind, steering North-by-East, almost bows-on to Proteus’s larboard quarter. Lewrie turned to slouch with his right arm on the bulwarks, most un-captainly-like, and squinted at her. He imagined a “dashing” schooner captain might haul up close, then tack and try to rake him, getting in his licks before the others, perhaps to fire up into his frigate’s rigging and carry away something vital that would allow the corvettes to get into knife-fighting distance. Well…two could play that game, Lewrie thought. His ship had not yet reefed or clewed up her main course, which would be drawn up out of the way for fear of fire once the guns began to sing; she still had all the power of the wind to utilise. Proteus’s yards, though she steered a point “free” of close-hauled, he’d had drawn in loose-braced, not quite gathering as much wind as they could if braced in sharp. Not that obvious to the approaching French yet, letting them gain, but…
Yes, there she went, starting to tack…the ambitious young shit! Get a bit to windward, then tack and fall down on his vulnerable stern…or so he thought!
“Mister Langlie, brace in hard and get a proper way back on her. Then we will wear,” Lewrie decided of a sudden.
“And close them, sir?”
“For a while, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie cheerfully replied. “In the process, we’ll force them to tack, if they want at us that badly, upset whatever they’re planning, and…bear down on yon schooner so frightful we’ll make her commander squirt his breeches,” Lewrie quickly sketched out. “Once about, we will go close-hauled on larboard tack and chase the little bastard, splitting their forces and isolating him. And give the ‘cousins’ the time to get up and have a proper whack at ’em.
“I’m feelin’ devilish generous today, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “New course, East-Sou’east.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Langlie said with a sly grin.
“She wears!” Griot exclaimed.
“Then get us about, too, at once!” Choundas snapped. “Signal to La Résolue to conform to our manoeuvres.”
“At once, m’sieur,” Capt. Griot said, turning to pass the order to his First Officer, then turning back to Choundas. “Such a tack will bring us much closer to the American warships. Once we engage Proteus they will have time to sail up and take us on our dis-engaged side.”
“If I cannot have that salaud Lewrie this time, I will at least damage him in passing, Griot,” Choundas growled. “A quick action at three-to-one odds to cripple and kill, then we will break away and go to the rescue of our merchant ships…hacking that puny American brig of war apart in the process. Perhaps even taking her and teaching a lesson to those rustic ingrates. Oh, to be just a mile closer…what Hell we could play upon Lewrie as he wears!”
For HMS Proteus was coming about, first swinging to present her stern to the Trades, then only slowly, handsomely, swinging her yards, jibs, and stays’ls as she wore across the eyes of the wind, offering up her profile to the French corvettes, which were swinging their bows at her as they tacked. The slowness of the British frigate’s manoeuvres, and their tacks, brought all three square-riggers closer to each other—yet still frustratingly out of even a most hopeful gunner’s attempt to hit her, one mile beyond Range-To-Random-Shot.
Guillaume Choundas hobbled to the head of the larboard gun-deck ladder, wrapping his left arm about the stanchion for a swivel-gun, his walking-stick tucked under his arm, and thumping his fist on the rails as if to flog Lé Gascon into a break-neck gallop. Griot, canny sailor that he was, had the larboard guns run out and the starboard artillery run in near to amidships, to loading positions, to get her flatter on her bottom. Le Gascon’s, and La Résolue’s, bottoms were mostly clean, their entries were finer than most, and their length of keel was just a bit shorter than the frigate’s. Given enough time, and both corvettes should stride up to Proteus and bracket her between their guns. Lewrie could squirm about, but that would only quicken his death.
He looked Sutherly, noting that La Résolue was positioned for an engagement on Lewrie’s starboard side, while Le Gascon was high enough to take him under fire on his larboard side, even allowing for leeward slippage, which was unavoidable going hard to windward.
“Your protégé, Hainaut, has courage, m’sieur,” Griot commented. “His schooner might get to her before we do.”
“Yes, he does,” Choundas replied, irked that his vital calculations of wind, leeway, and speed were interrupted, yet with a sound of grudging pride in his voice, even so. “Cleverness, too.”
“Let us hope more cleverness than brute bravery, m’sieur,” Capt. Griot gloomily intoned. “Once we savage Proteus, and get past her, we must bear away Southeast, else we approach the Americans, line-abreast…unable to aid each other, m’sieur,” he pointed out.
“I do not fear their rough-cast, home-made, and light pop-guns, Griot!” Choundas declared with a sneer. “American foundries and powder mills are…merde. And their gun crews a pack of clumsy children in comparison to how well you and MacPherson have trained ours.”
“Very well, m’sieur,” Griot said, keeping his voice neutral, in dread of what Choundas might order in the heat of rising expectations for battle. He feared pointing out how quickly the Americans stalked down on them, were starting to haul their wind a point or so, as if to aim between Proteus’s stern quarters and his own ship’s bows, and cut them off from pursuit. Capt. Griot was fearful, too, to express what qualms he felt after taking a long look at the trailing “small frigate” that his lookouts had reported, as she loomed taller and taller in his ocular, beginning to appear as massive as a cut-down Third Rate still bearing two decks of guns…. Madness, the doughty Griot thought, his heart heavy; we are sacrificed to this ogre’s revenge. Madness!
“The Frog schooner’s now about one mile off our starboard quarters, sir,” Lt. Langlie adjudged, his telescope to his eye, “and those corvettes are a mile and a half astern, but coming fast. One about dead astern, t’other on our larboard quarter.”
“And our Yankees only four miles up to windward,” Lewrie added, with a satisfied sniff. “Time for some fun, Mister Langlie. Haul our wind and steer due South. Mister Catterall?” he shouted forward, over the hammock nettings. “Stand by, the starboard battery, and take that schooner under fire once we’ve fallen off! Your best gun-captains, to fire as they bear, mind! Let ’em take their time at it!”
“Aye aye, sir!” Catterall bellowed back, pleased as punch to be loosed on their foes, at last. “Right, you bawdy whore-sons…!”
Proteus heeled, groaning, almost putting her starboard outboard shroud chain platforms into the sea as her helm was put up, as braces and sheets were eased. Once settled on her new course due South, the port lids swung up to make a regular blood-red chequer against the pale paint of her gunwales, and the heavy truck-carriages rumbled and squealed as her 12-pounder guns were run out in-battery. A long minute passed as gun-captains fussed and fiddled with the elevating quoin blocks, directing their crews to shift aim left or right with the long crow-levers to “sweat” tons of oak and iron a few inches. Rope tackles and blocks were overhauled for clear recoil paths, before the experienced gun-captains took up the lanyards to their flintlock strikers, then shot their free fists skyward to show readiness, reducing the slack in the lanyards to the last, remaining inch…
“As you bear…fire!” Lt. Catterall roared.
Bow to stern, her t
hirteen starboard 12-pounders stuttered out a bellicose thunder, some gunners waiting for the scend of the sea to raise the decks nearer to dead-level before jerking their lanyards; in ones, twos, and threes the guns erupted and lurched inboard, with both guns right-aft in Lewrie’s great-cabins adding the final kettle-drun coda of a quick Boo-Boom! To Lewrie’s ears it was almost excruciatingly…musical!
The French schooner had been almost bows-on to Proteus, following her turn off the wind, and her stunned master had kept her bows-on…most-likely to present the slimmest target he could to that sudden broadside. Great, lovely columns and feathers of spray leaped skyward about her…to either beam, or short before her bows, but terrifyingly close, and bounding upward as darting black specks from First Graze, barely slowed to howl, keen, or shriek over her decks or down both of her sides, as if she had been assailed by a flying coven of witches!
Thinking quickly, the schooner’s captain ordered her helm hard over to leeward to tack her Northward towards the nearest corvette to escape a second pummeling, hoping to flit beyond Proteus’s limited gun-arcs. As she bared her starboard side to them, rolling, heeling, and every sail panic-flogging, Proteus’s gunners raised a jeering howl at the sight of holes that their shot had punched in her canvas!
“Now, back on the wind, Mister Langlie!” Lewrie ordered. “All for now, Mister Catterall, sorry! Close your ports, but reload, then stand by to serve ’em another!”
“We’ve lost a quarter-mile to the corvettes, sir,” Lt. Langlie pointed out.
“Aye. Temptin’,” Lewrie snickered, beaming fit to bust, with a playful double-lift of his brows, “ain’t we. Those poor bastards back yonder, Mister Langlie…they should be running, but they’re not. I doubt they could scuttle back to Choundas, ’thout dirtyin’ their guns a time or two. He’d scrag ’em for cowardice, else. Counting on it!”
The schooner ploughed on Northerly for a minute longer, before tacking again to lay herself half a mile in advance of the nearer corvette, now up on their larboard quarter. Some quick flag hoists were made, then both vessels hauled their wind a point free, to fall off on a bow-and-quarter line, “lasking,”’til they lay off Proteus’s starboard quarters once more, then came back to in-line-ahead, hard on the wind. The far corvette had fallen off, too, to match the distance to leeward that Proteus had lost with her Sutherly swing, all of them yet intent on bracketing, then pummeling, her.
But, by then, they had left it too late, and the Americans were upon them. Sumter swept in, abeam of Proteus and thrashing between on a furiously boiling bow and quarter wave, her gun-ports already opened and her curious bright red figurehead of a fighting cock with its neck outstretched and its wings spread in anger catching the reflections of sea-glint and appearing as if alive.
The French schooner hauled her wind, again, ducking to leeward to upset the aim of Sumter’s larboard gunners, showing the Yankee her stern. As she turned, she fired a ragged salvo from her larboard pop-guns, moments before Sumter returned the favour, and the sea about her frothed, leaped, and feathered anew with near-misses. And the schooner visibly trembled as heavy round-shot hammered into her. The French corvette astern of her hauled her wind, too, beginning to swing Sutherly. To stand on close-hauled to windward would open her vulnerable bows to a punishing rake, and to haul her wind too late would make the bow-rake even closer and more damaging! She would match her larboard guns to Sumter’s starboard cannon while running for home, and hope for the best!
While Hancock, massive as a rocky island fortress, bore down on the farther corvette, remaining upwind of her to oppose larboard guns to larboard guns…and just slavering for the Frenchman to haul off and expose her fragile stern timbers.
“Mister Catterall, stand by to engage the schooner, again! Do you haul off South, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie bade.
Sumter arrowed in at an angle before swinging abeam of her foe, and both broadsides went off almost as one, instantly wreathing both ships in an angry grey thunderhead of spent powder smoke; upon which the schooner stood out in stark profile after Proteus had altered her course. The range was only half a mile, this time, but…
“Hold fire, Mister Catterall, ’til she sails below Sumter! We don’t want t’hit our friends with ‘overs’!” Lewrie cautioned. But all four vessels were running off the wind to the Suth’rd, denying Proteus a clean shot for long minutes whilst topmen aboard the schooner raked her tops’l gaskets free and let her extra canvas fall. With more sail aloft, she slowly began to inch ahead—then had the sauce to let loose her starboard guns at Sumter’s dis-engaged side, and, once settled down on course, raised her larboard ports and let fly at Proteus, to boot! The sharp, yipping bangs didn’t amount to guns much larger than 4-pounders, and her small-diametre shot grazed twice or thrice, before sinking close-aboard with no effect, but Lewrie found it galling. And, as she finally sailed alee of Sumter and the battling corvette, out in clear air where they could fire on her, Proteus had to swing two points to windward so her guns could bear, even as the range began to open…
“Fire!” Lt. Catterall at last could howl, slashing his sword at the deck after long stomp-about-cursing moments of utter frustration. Low-aimed roundshot pillared and columned the waters round the French schooner, bounding from First Graze to dash low over her decks, gnaw a vicious bite from her bulwarks here and there, but…she sailed on, still firing—as if it were an equal contest!
“Point more to windward, Mister Langlie! Hit her, again, lads! Gut that poxy, slug-eatin’ whore!” Lewrie raged, knowing that the schooner was out-footing his frigate, that if they didn’t cripple her soon, he’d be forced to fall in astern of her and spin out a day-long stern-chase, in hopes of a few lucky hits from his forward chase-guns to whittle off her speed advantage. Had he been able to fire on her when she’d been closer, and dead abeam…!
Far down to leeward, USS Oglethorpe had merged with those fleeing merchantmen, a quick peek with a glass showed him. It looked like they had already struck their colours and fetched-to.
There goes all hope o’ profit, Lewrie miserably surmised; damme…I said I was feelin’ generous, but not that generous, by God!
“Hancock is engaging, Captain!” Lt. Langlie screeched, the only way he could be heard over the general din.
“This ought t’be int’resting,” Lewrie muttered, turning aft.
The American frigate had clewed up her main course, and had let her way fall off a bit. Better than a mile and a half astern, she now appeared close enough to the French corvette to crash her yardarm tips against the French ship’s yard ends, though there probably remained at least two cables’ separation between them.
There was a concerted crash as Hancock’s weather-deck guns, the 12-pounders mounted on her stout and wide gangway, went off together, stabbing hot amber and red daggers at the corvette, creating a pall of gun-smoke that drifted down on the French warship. And the corvette’s sails and yards were savaged, spindly top-masts and shattered yardarms sent flying in ragged chunks, her dun-coloured sails clawed and bitten into great rents, whipping and collapsing in on themselves.
Hancock altered course in the last seconds as the two warships’ images overlapped, laying her beam parallel to the French ship’s side, and then…
“God help the Frogs,” Lewrie muttered; rather insincerely, that.
Hancock’s heavy lower-deck 24-pounders raged, and even at that distance it looked as if the corvette rocked and tipped, bobbing like a folded-paper boat on a pond, assailed by a heaping handful of pebbles flung by a spiteful child. Then, almost mercifully, all sight of her was blotted out by a titanic pall of powder smoke that blew down upon her, hiding her hurts from view. Even hidden, Hancock’s massive guns, firing as they bore and not in broadside, still thundered.
“Gawd!” was all that Lt. Langlie could say after seeing that.
“Exeunt, one French corvette, stage left,” Lewrie said, awed by such a powerful display. “Damme if she ain’t completely dis-masted…right down to the level of her
bulwarks,” he pointed out, as the smoke drifted alee and clear of the corvette, which now wallowed with all her motive power, and most of her way, stolen.
For their own part, Lt. Catterall was getting off another broadside at the French schooner, gnawing her just a bit more, peppering the sea about her, but inflicting no lasting harm. Proteus had to turn up to windward two more points to keep her guns aimed at her, but at the same time the schooner was hardening up to the Trades, too, and was in the lead, curving out a course ahead of their frigate’s starboard bow.
Lewrie grimaced in frustration. The schooner would prove to be handier and more weatherly. Proteus could press up another point, and then she’d be close-hauled, sailing on the ragged edge of the wind and could go no higher. The schooner with its fore-and-aft sails could go at least a point higher, and end up directly ahead of them, where only the pair of chase-guns could worry at her, and not very effectively at that, as the bows plunged and soared, bludgeoning their way windward.
Within an hour, Lewrie knew, the schooner would be far enough up to windward on the larboard bows that only one chase-gun could fire; a swing to leeward to use all his larboard battery would put Proteus even farther behind and alee. One hour more, and the schooner would be out of gun-range.
He looked about for aid, but there was none. Oglethorpe was now back under sail after securing her two prizes, but was too far down in the South, alee of Proteus, to be of any avail. Oh, he could continue to chase the schooner, but he doubted he could catch her this side of Guadeloupe, unless something in her rigging carried away.
Lewrie drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out in a bitter sigh. He had the Americans to flatter and congratulate, in hopes that their sudden and complete victory might make them so giddy they might leap at continued cooperation, even alliance; and that was worth much more in the long run than a puny armed schooner taken as prize.
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