"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…!"
11 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 t
o 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. "On 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 linstocks 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.
"Free sheets and take a strain… helm's up! Ease the sheets. Wait 'til the deck's level, for God's sake, wait… Now, fire! And sheet home. Helm is alee! And we are bound for home and mother!"
"What in Hell was that in aid of, I wonder?" Lt. Devereux, the Marine officer, asked with a wry, gawping, one-eye-cocked expression.
"Some young and cocky Monsoor, with dung for brains," Catterall chuckled. His guns were shot out, swabbed clean, flintlocks removed, and the tompions inserted into the cooling muzzles. The gun-ports had been let drop and lashed shut, and his magnificent 12-pounder Blomefeld Pattern great-guns were now firmly bowsed to the bulwarks, their trucks chocked, and train and run-out tackle neatly overhauled. A last sponge-down to remove the powder stains, and Catterall could go aft for a well-deserved glass of claret from the gun-room stores. Looking up at their Marine officer on the gangway above him, Catterall imagined that Devereux was looking a tad "dry," himself, and might even, after such a successful morning's work, dip into his personal stores and offer to share a bottle with them. Devereux had private funds in addition to his pay, and a much more refined palate; his wine stock was head-and-shoulders above anything to which Mrs. Catterall's second son could ever aspire… not if they kept blasting perfectly good prize vessels off the face of the ocean instead of taking them, that is.
"Good rub-down, Sarn't Skipwith," Devereux instructed, handing over his Pennsylvania rifle-musket. "And do tell Private Doakes he is not to dab gun-oil on the stock, this time, hmm?"
"Sah!"
"And did you do good practice, sir?" Catterall asked.
"Rather doubt it, Mister Catterall," Devereux dismissively said. "Our closest approach was just under three hundred yards, and even the rifle-musket can't guarantee accuracy that far. Did keep 'em worried, though, I expect, to hear balls hum round their ears that far away."
"Lord, I'm dry as dust!" Catterall ventured, hands in the small of his back and creaking himself in a backwards arc to resettle bones.
"We'll splice the main-brace, if I've learned anything about the Captain," Devereux promised. "Soon as everything's 'Bristol Fashion.'"
Catterall turned away for a last look-over of his charges, making a face at the very thought of rum, and thinking that Lt. Devereux was a stingy bastard at times. "Oh, jolly," he falsely cheered.
'Now, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, beckoning the Sailing Master up to the starboard mizen shrouds, "at Nor-Nor'west, should we attempt to work our way to windward below Monserrat, or should we stand on 'til we fetch Nevis, or Saint Kitts, before tacking for Antigua?"
"I suggest we stand on, sir," Mr. Winwood said. "The Trades're back to normal… so far, that is. Not above Saint Kitts, though."
"Very well. Consult your charts and make a best guess for me, as to when and where we may safely shave Nevis. Aye, no need to put us on a lee shore on Saint Kitts, should the Trades back Easterly."
"Aye, sir. I shall see to it."
"Mister Peel?" Lewrie beckoned again, as Winwood went down to the binnacle cabinet. "A moment of your time, if you please."
"Captain Lewrie," Peel said, tight-lipped and still truculent.
"My apologies for any Billingsgate language in the heat of the moment, Mister Peel," Lewrie casually explained, "but if we are bound to work hand-in-glove 'til God knows when, I s'pose I do owe you further explanation of my… madness," he continued, with a disarming grin.
"I quite understand you wish to take Choundas down a peg in the eyes of his compatriots, Captain Lewrie," Peel coolly allowed, stiffly formal. "I would also imagine that tweaking his nose this morning was something personal to you."
"Quite right, Mister Peel," Lewrie cheerfully confessed. "Was he watching this morning, or will he just hear of it, he'll know the name of our ship. And you have already told me that he knows I'm in command of her. Your Mister Pelham suggested that that knowledge might lure him into folly… since chasing me down to kill me is personal to him, too. This little piece of work should fix his attention hellish-wondrous. Right? "
"Granted, Captain Lewrie," Peel said, gravely nodding, and seeming to relent his insulted stiffness a tad.
"But what'11 it do among his smuggling captains and crews, his small and weak auxiliaries… his privateers?" Lewrie posed, beaming with evil glee. "I deliberately destroyed that Dutch ship to make the point that, do they cross my hawse, there'll be no mercy, 'long as they work for Choundas. That rumour will get round among 'em, count on it, soon as Proteus, and Lewrie, and Choundas are linked. Other warships might play by the accepted rules, but they'd best write their wills and sleep with one eye open as long as I'm at sea.
"And any British frigate that hauls up within their sight just might be Proteus, and Lewrie, hey?"
"Yes," Peel said after a long frown. "I do see your point, sir."
"So do you accept my apology, Mister Peel?" Lewrie asked.
"I do, Captain Lewrie," Peel replied with a smile, at last, and his hand out for shaking. "Do you accept mine as well. For being my own secretive self when it came to the private signals. Did we wait to use them, they would have been out of date in another two months in any event, so… for not going direct to Antigua, as Mister Pelham wished, too, and disputing your decision to come here."
"I will endeavour to explain myself more plainly in future," Lewrie vowed, shaking Peel's hand. "But for now, I must carry on, sir, so…" Lewrie said, turning away to head for the hammock ne
ttings overlooking the gun-deck and gangways, ready to address the crew.
"Oh, Captain Lewrie," Peel called after him. "Something else I s'pose I must apologise for. Damme, but the thinking you put into your raid, it showed such unexpected, uhm… sagacity and…"
"What, Mister Peel?" Lewrie hooted. "You're sorry you thought all I could do was plod round a quarterdeck and cry 'Luff,' or 'Fetch out yer whores'?"
"Something like that, sir," Peel answered, with a faint wince to be so clearly understood. Not that he didn't think that Captain Lewrie could ever be consistently clever, but… he did have his moments!
"Accepted, sir," Lewrie chuckled with a faint bow and a grand doff of his hat. Then he was busy with the Surgeon, Mr. Hodson, whom he allowed to mount the quarterdeck to make his report, and expressing his wonder that not a single sailor had been killed, and only six men had been hurt, with the further good news that only one of the wounded hands was considered a sick-berth patient.
Sure enough, once HMS Proteus had made a goodly offing and had sailed the shore of Guadeloupe under the horizon, with only the twin peaks of Basse-Terre still showing, the brightly painted rum keg was fetched up from below with all due ceremony and martial music from the Marine drummers and fifers, to welcoming cheers from her thirsty, successful man o' warsmen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
L e Bouclier was anchored once more, to her second bower and her lesser kedge, this time with her un-harmed larboard side facing to seaward, with little L'Impudente tied up along her ravaged starboard side.
Saws screeched and rasped, metal hammers and wooden mauls thudded and drummed, and old wood cried as it was torn away with crow-levers for replacement with fresh planking brought up from the bosun's stores. Blocks shrilled as dis-mounted cannon were lowered back onto carriages set back on their trucks, as shattered carriages, stripped of any useful fittings, were hoisted over-side for scrapping or firewood ashore; as replacement yards and top-masts were swayed aloft, up through the lubber's holes in the savaged fighting-tops to be jiggled, then bound into place by weary topmen. The starboard gangway was heaped with the thick rolls of sails too singed or shot-torn to salvage, Fresh rolls of spare sails, huge hillocks of salvageable canvas, and bolts of new cloth smothered the forward gun-deck where Le Voilier, the Sailmaker and his crew, cut, snipped, basted, and sewed to patch damaged sails or start completely new replacements, installing grommets, reef-lines, and bolt-ropes inside the edging seams.
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