Modeste, clear of the wrecked French frigate, was firing again at the two-decker. The two-decker's larboard side erupted in a reply. The range was only about a cable, and everyone on Reliant'? quarterdeck who could look aft let out a groan to see the avalanche of shot that struck Modeste's sides, punched through her sails, and raised feathery plumes of shot-splashes all round her engaged side.
"Cockerel and Pylades are engaging the trailing Frenchman, sir!" Midshipman Grainger called forward. With no signals to send at that moment, he could use his telescope for his own amusements.
"Sorry, sir," Lt. Spendlove said from the foot of the starboard companionway ladder. "The guns won't bear unless we alter course."
"Both batteries, Mister Spendlove," Lewrie answered, leaning to smile at him. "If she's almost dead astern of us, we'll weave about from tack to tack, and rake her bows 'til she takes notice."
"Aye, sir!"
That'll take some of her attention from Modeste, at any rate, Lewrie told himself as he went back to the helm to re-join Westcott and explain what he wished.
"May I suggest we haul our wind to larboard for the first shots, sir," Lt. Westcott posed with a brief grin. "Give her the larboard guns, then come back Due North. Else, our East'rd turn would put us dead into the eye of the wind, and in irons if we're not quick about it."
"Very good, Mister Westcott, let's do it. Mister Spendlove… larboard battery first! We're going to haul our wind!"
"Aye, sir!"
"Two points down-helm first, Mister Westcott," Lewrie decided after a quick look-about. "Get some way on her, and some lead to windward, so we can lay Spendlove's guns dead abeam."
"Aye, sir! Stations for wear!" Westcott called out to the crew.
Reliant surged up to windward, on a close reach for a moment, with braces hauled in, the deck heeling, and the sea swashing more urgently down her flanks. The French two-decker, still duelling with Modeste, shifted from a point off the starboard quarter to a point off her larboard quarter.
"Now, Mister Westcott! Wear her! Stand ready on the guns, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie snapped.
Reliant lost a lot of her gathered speed as she came about, the decks canting, the masts wheeling cross the skies, pivotting on a wide patch of disturbed, foamed water as she swung to Due West, steadying and laying herself cross the two-decker's course, two cables off…
"As… you… bear, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie yelled.
"As you bear… fire!"
Hard iron round-shot caromed off the sea round the two-decker's bows, dapping from First Graze to smash into her bows. More iron hit her directly, punching holes into her lower gun-deck, ripping away her figurehead, her curving beakhead rails, and bowling down both her upper and lower gun-decks. Her jib-boom disappeared in a cloud of splinters, collapsing her inner jib and outer flying jib, and her fore top-mast stays. As Reliant'?, shot hit her, Captain Blanding's Modeste delivered another broadside, lower deck first, then upper deck and all her carronades, and the French flagship was visibly staggered.
"Stay on this course 'til she's on our larboard quarters, Mister Westcott, then we'll go back on the wind," Lewrie ordered. "Just a bit longer, so our next broadside's at closer range." "Aye, sir."
"Starboard side next, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie called down to the waist.
"Signal, sir… our number!" Midshipman Grainger said from aft. "'Engage The Enemy More Closely,' sir!"
"Very well, Mister Grainger… Let's do that. Ready about!" Lewrie replied, grinning. "About… now, Mister Westcott!"
Reliant wheeled about to Due North once more, slowing again but placing the French warship square-on to the gun-ports of the starboard battery, with her at a 45-degree angle, a bit West of her course.
"I leave it to you, Mister Spendlove! Serve her a good'un!" he shouted down to the waist.
God, but I love this! Lewrie thought, imagining that he had wakened from a long, dull sleep; most-like it's all I'm good for, but I need this! Big guns, shot, and powder stench! And killin' Frogs!
"As you bear… fire!" Spendlove rasped hoarsely.
It would not be a proper bow-rake, but the bulk of their fire would slam into the two-decker's forrud larboard quarters this time, the range no more than a single cable, and closing quickly as Reliant crossed the Frenchman's course, almost on the ragged edge of the wind, and the Sailing Master, Lt. Westcott, the quartermasters on the wheel watching her luff damned close, waiting for the very last gun to fire to order the helm be put up, and haul off from North by West.
"Now, sir!" Lewrie shouted as the last gun aft in his cabins erupted. "Full and by, Due North, and let's get some space ahead of her 'fore we try that again."
"Oh, lovely!" Marine Lieutenant Simcock exulted. Until action was at "close pistol-shot" or until a boarding action was called for, he had no proper duties on the quarterdeck, and had been strolling about, a curious onlooker. "That'll ruin their digestion!"
HMS Modeste was meeting Captain Blanding's requirements for three broadsides every two minutes, still deliberate and controlled, not a ragged catch-as-catch-can cannonade resembling the firing line of a hunting party potting pheasant, when ships were so close together that gun-captains were allowed to fire at will. She was taking punishment, but she was dealing it out in spades, compared to the speed and skill of the French. Modeste's last broadside had struck almost in conjunction with Reliant's raking fire, and they had just mauled her together.
Upper bulwarks were disappearing in great clouds of shattered wood; the two-decker's mizen mast was hit below the fighting top and leaped skyward for an instant before crashing down over her quarterdeck and poop, falling to larboard, alee, like a titanic sweep-oar to drag into the sea. With her helm crushed under all that wreckage she began to slew downwind! The light upper masts and top-masts slashed down separately, raking away stays and main-mast yards and sails before slamming down into her waist, as well. She sagged further downwind…
"Wear, Mister Westcott!" Lewrie snapped, seizing the opportunity. "Larboard-battery, Mister Spendlove, and it'll be a proper bow-rake this time!"
The French flagship was losing way, painfully turning alee and sagging towards Modeste's, waiting guns as Reliant came off the wind to a reciprocal course, Due South. The enemy's bows were square-on to her and the range…! Slow as all the manoeuvring had made her, Reliant would be very close this time, no more than 150 yards under her bows for the broadside.
Ruin yer digestion, aye! Lewrie thought in murderous joy, hammering his fists on the cross-deck hammock nettings to urge his gunners to take advantage of this sudden change in fortune; rip yer bloody guts out, morelike! Blow yer bloody heart out! Come on, come on!
The last of the round-shot was being rammed home; the wads were being shoved down the muzzles; quills were inserted; flintlock strikers were cocked, and trigger lines hauled taut!
"As you bear… fire!" both Spendlove and Merriman shouted.
"I think she's struck, by God!" Lt. Westcott exclaimed, opinion lost in the deafening bellows of the guns. "Sir? Captain, sir?"
Ignore him! Lewrie told himself, eyes intent on the damage they were causing as each piece erupted in smoke, flames, and sparks, then leaped rearwards; I want gore!
Reliant sailed on past the devastation, the broadside done.
"Mister Westcott, up-helm and steer Sou'west before we tangle with Modeste."
Their own flagship was only a cable off their larboard beam as they swung away alee of her, scampering to avoid being trampled.
"You say something, Mister Westcott?" Lewrie asked, massaging his ringing ears as if he hadn't quite heard what he'd said.
"I think she's struck, sir. Yes! There's all her colours on the way down, sir! We've beat them, sir! They've struck to us!" Lt. Westcott came close to say, to point his arm at the foe. "Glorious!"
"Ah, well. Hmm, in that case… Mister Spendlove, Mister Merriman… stand easy!" Lewrie ordered, taking out his pocket-watch to ascertain the time, as if it was no great matter at all, alth
ough he felt sudden rage to be denied complete vengeance. He had to play-act a proper, phlegmatic sea captain!
"Deck, there!" a main-mast lookout shouted down. "T'other frigate's struck t' Cockerel an' Pylades!"
Fourty-five minutes! Lewrie marvelled; not a whole hour, and it's done? Goddamn the cowardly…!
"Secure from Quarters, sir," Lewrie told Westcott, who was congratulating the men of the Afterguard, the quarterdeck gun crews, and the helmsmen. "And ready the ship's boats to take charge of the foe. Mister Simcock? Work for your Marines, t'guard the prisoners." "Most welcome, sir!" Simcock crowed back.
Lewrie went to one of the larboard quarterdeck carronades and clambered atop it to the bulwarks, then into the mizen stays and rat-lines so he could ascend a few feet above the deck to look things over with a glass. Cockerel and Pylades lay to either beam of the trailing French frigate, all three warships fetched-to, and boats already working between them; she looked mostly undamaged, with all her masts still standing and her sails whole. The first frigate was still wallowing and rocking, and Lewrie could see gushes of water jetting overside from her bilge pumps.
"Two frigates and a Seventy-Four, why, that has t'be worth at least fifty, sixty thousand pounds for the lot!" the Sailing Master was speculating aloud. "Two years' pay for every Man Jack, I wager!"
"Goddamned sham sailors, you bloody, cowardly… bastards!" Lewrie muttered under his breath. "Mine arse on a band-box, is that all the fight ye had in ye?" he said, louder. "Over four thousand or more miles we came… for this, damn yer thin French blood?"
"Sir?" Lt. Westcott asked from below him. "You said something?"
"I said the Frogs are a lot o' poltroons who don't have grit enough for a real fight, Mister Westcott," Lewrie gravelled, descending from his perch. "I s'pose we should come about and work our way under Modeste's lee."
"Marvellous, sir!" Lt. Merriman was saying as he mounted to the quarterdeck. "D'ye know… we've but two hands wounded, none dead? One fellow was splintered in the foremast top, and one of my gunners had his ankle broken in the recoil tackle. Bloody miraculous, what?"
"Signal from the flag, sir… our number!" Midshipman Grainger intruded with a sharp cry. "'General Chase' and 'Transport,' sir!"
"The Indiaman, too, hmm," Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, speculated further. "That might mean another ten thousand pounds, all told. Head-and-gun money on all their soldiers, too, what?"
"She can't be more than… an hour ahead of us, sir," Westcott said, consulting his own timepiece. "Crack on for Pass a La Loutre, sir?"
"Aye, Mister Westcott," Lewrie agreed, pretending to perk up in false glee… when what he wanted to do, most dearly wanted to do, was send his hands back to the guns, barge up to the nearest French ship, and finish the job, the prize-money bedamned! "Mister Caldwell… the best, direct course for Pass a La Loutre, if you please. We've a ship to catch up 'fore dark."
"Aye aye, sir!" the Sailing Master responded, still rubbing his hands together as he turned to the traverse board to consult a chart.
"Three cheers, lads!" Midshipman the Honourable Entwhistle was urging down in the waist as the last cannon was secured and cleaned. "Three cheers for our good Reliant!"
"Three cheers for Captain Lewrie, huzzah!" Midshipman Houghton added. "It's victory!"
Bloody toady! Lewrie sourly thought, squirming inside to hear that burst of cheering, hooting, and clapping in his honour. Oh, he had to recognise it, standing at the forward edge of the quarterdeck, and look down into the ship's waist, where his crew capered and danced in joy of their first battle together, and their victory. He had to doff his hat to them, nod his head, yet keep a stern demeanour. That wasn't all that hard, for anger still rumbled in him for being cheated of the ocean of French gore he so heartily desired.
"Three cheers for yourselves, men!" he shouted as the din died down a bit. "For three rounds every two minutes, and good gunnery!"
That went down like a Christmas pudding, and pleased them right down to their toes. He envied them their jubilation.
"Now, lads… we've a last ship t'take, over yonder," Lewrie told them, pointing Westward with his hat. "and that'll make it a clean sweep. Are ye ready for one more?"
"Aye, sir! Aye! Let's be at em!" they shouted back.
"Then, let's be about it!" Lewrie shouted. "Soon as we're steady on course, we'll splice the main-brace!"
"Best course will be Sou'west by West, sir," the Sailing Master supplied as he turned away from their last cheers.
"Make it so, Mister Westcott." Lewrie ordered. "Sou'west by West, and crack on."
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
And take her they did, sixteen miles from the entrance to the Mississippi, out of sight of land and any watchers from Fort Balise or the delta shoal islands. She was a converted two-decker Third Rate, sailing en flute with only half her lower-deck guns and none of her upper-deck artillery. Even before Reliant fetched up to her at Range to Random Shot, she struck her colours and reduced sail, stealing any hopes that Lewrie might have nourished that there would be more fighting. There would be no more vengeance to be exacted.
When Lewrie went aboard with his boat crew and half the Marine complement, even he could not summon up any more anger. The two-decker carried only two companies of French infantry and was not manned to the establishment, either-there were not over 120 of them, led by an older Major, who openly wept as he handed over his unit's colours and his sword. There should have been a full regiment, the Major explained through an interpreter, but sickness on-passage, sickness once they had reached Cape Franзois, and the desperate need for defenders on St. Domingue to hold off the savage slave army had reduced their numbers.
"Et l'embarras des rйfugiйs, m'sieur," the Major said, waving an arm about the decks, shrugging helplessly, and swiping at his eyes with a calico handkerchief.
"Yes, I see," Lewrie told him, looking past him to the hundreds of civilians aboard; older men and matrons, married couples with their children, so many children.
"Tant de pauvres orphelins" the Major added with a huge sigh and a sniffle. His captains and lieutenants standing behind him were just as morose as their commanding officer, and even the French sailors were hangdog miserable. "So many orphans, m'sieur" the interpreter said. "Zey 'ave nozzing left, mos' of zem. What zey 'ave to wear, everyone."
Lewrie glowered as he paced about the quarterdeck of the ship as it wallowed and rolled, fetched-to and with the way off her. There were simply too many frightened, utterly miserable faces to avoid, too many pathetic pleas in their eyes.
Damn 'em! Lewrie thought; I should take 'em all back to Jamaica, intern 'em 'til their evacuation's arranged back to France, but…
His men were busy gathering gun-tools, muskets, and short hangers and bayonets by the boat-load, disarming the soldiers and emptying the ship's arms chests to leave them nothing with which to resist or rise up in the Middle Watch once back out at sea for Kingston, and a Prize Court.
He owed these pathetic Frogs nothing, not after what they had done to him… to Caroline, yet…
"You send zem to ze hulks, m'sieur?" the interpreter wheedled as he dogged Lewrie's steps. "Turn zis ship to ze prison? Zey perish, m'sieur! You mak retourner au… send them back, back, n'est-ce pas? Back to Le Cap, ze Noirs sauvages will mak ze massacre!"
"Oh, stop yer bloody gob!" Lewrie snapped at him, going back to the entry-port to look down at his empty boats. He pursed his lips, thinking hard. He looked round, and everywhere there were French men, children, and women, all looking at him in dread, some softly weeping into their handkerchiefs; children wailed and clung to their parents' legs or skirts…
Lewrie went back to the interpreter, pointing him towards the two-decker's captain. "Ask him how many boats he has. Four, that all? And how many refugees per boat does he judge would be safe, given the weather and sea state? Only sixty at a time? Damn! How many of 'em are there? Over three hundred? Hell and damn!"
It would be impossible, even if the Fre
nch seamen cooperated to the utmost. With his three ship's boats, and the Frenchman's, he might be able to land ninety or so per trip ashore, four trips in all, but he would have to close the coast to within half a mile or more, violating Spanish territory and raising one hell of a diplomatic stink. Louisiana was still Spanish; the hand-over to France had not yet happened as far as he knew. Better for him if it had reverted to France; then he could barge into enemy waters with impunity.
If the French sailors manning the oars refused to return for a second load, preferring to scamper and escape imprisonment, it would be over before it began.
And land them where? Lewrie paced to the shoreward bulwarks, hands in the small of his back, recalling how bleak and barren were the alluvial Mississippi Delta shoals either side of the Passes, both banks of the main river.
Might as well maroon 'em on the Chandeleurs! he scoffed; an hundred miles down-river from New Orleans? Close to Fort Balise? Damn!
That would do the refugees no good; Fort Balise was but lightly garrisoned, a joke on the term fort, and most-like the few Dons there lived hand-to-mouth already and would have no victuals to share. And there was the problem of a British warship in a Spanish river again.
Even if he could land them there, in the name of Christian charity, how long would it be before the Spanish got word upriver and sent a boat back to Fort Balise with extra food?
He turned to look North.
The squadron's got boats! he realised; do we take this ship and our other prizes into the Mississippi Sound, anchor up near Old Biloxi, we could barge ' em into Lake Borgne and land 'em on that little beach I found. From there, it's only fifteen miles up the Chef Menteur road t'New Orleans! Send a letter along with 'em… What's the bloody name o' that Panton, Leslie trade agent I worked with? Pollock. Gideon Pollock, aye!
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